


Melánia

by milominderbinder



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: AU after season 3, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Bipolar Disorder, Homophobic Language, M/M, Reunions, Shameless Big Bang, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-01-25 11:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 57,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1646663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milominderbinder/pseuds/milominderbinder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot’s changed in the two years since Ian and Mandy ran off.  Terry’s dead, Svetlana’s moved out, the Kash and Grab has started stocking blue Gatorade – oh, and Mickey’s been raising his brother’s baby ever since Tony went to jail.</p><p>But when he realises he might be stuck with the kid for good, Mickey decides to move out of Chicago and actually give her a chance in life.  And it’s the couple of familiar faces he finds when he gets to Philly that<i> really</i> set change in motion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is my contribution to round one of the Shameless Big Bang! which i also organised and ran... basically just because i wanted an excuse to write this, oops
> 
> the art for this fic was done by hey-lip-hows-your-lip and can be seen [here](http://hey-lip-hows-your-lip.tumblr.com/post/86014437433/shameless-big-bang-melania-by)
> 
> this is set diverging from the end of s3, but incorporating some elements of s4 too. there are 25 chapters, and i will be posting one a day!
> 
>  
> 
> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)

The first thing Mickey says when he opens the door is, “No fucking way.”

He goes to close it again straight away, but Tony’s fist shoots out and holds it open.  Mickey hasn’t seen his brother in a year, and he had in no way been cut up about that fact.  He’d, in fact, considered it a pretty fucking lucky break.  But now Tony’s here, stood on the doorstep of the home they used to share, and he’s holding something in his arms that Mickey just _knows_ is gonna mean trouble.

“Ey, yo, Mickey,” Tony says, “I need a favour.”

“When the fuck did _you_ have a kid?” Mickey asks.  Because that’s what Tony’s holding, he’s holding a wriggling little baby, who’s sucking on a broken pacifier and wearing a pair of little pink overalls with about five different stains down the front.  And Mickey knows this means trouble because he has a horrible feeling he knows what the favour’s gonna be, and he does _not_ want to find out if he’s right.

Tony pauses at the question.  Actually fucking pauses, like he’s having to think about it, and Mickey could just groan because his brothers are all such pieces of shit.  Then, Tony says;

“Like, six months ago?  Listen, dude, I need you to hold her for a while.  I gotta go on a run with Iggy.”

“Fuck that shit,” Mickey says, eyeing the kid warily as she squirms in Tony’s arms.  “Why can’t she stay with her mom?”

Tony shakes his head, _no,_ “Bitch fucked off,” like that makes Mickey the only option. 

“Mandy?” Mickey suggests right after that.

“You tell me where she is and I’ll fucking take the kid to her.”

Of course, Mickey’s stumped there; bar a couple of three-word texts, he hasn’t heard from Mandy in a year and a half, none of them have.  He wracks his brains - there’s their aunt Rande that they used to foist Mandy off on when Terry was in prison.  Only before he can even suggest it he remembers, she’s in a fucking home now or some shit, ‘cus of her MS.  And that’s it; that’s the end of the list.  There is not a single other eligible babysitter in the Milkovich family.  And the thing is Tony’s arms is literally just a baby, a few months old; it’s not like the kid’s two or three and could be left on its own for a night (Mickey knows that’s considered bad to some people, but as far as he’s concerned, if you can wipe your own ass and open the fridge, you can look after yourself).  He can actually kinda see how he might be considered the best option here.

“You don’t got _no_ friends?  Her mom didn’t have _any_ fucking friends?”  
  
Tony just stares at him.

“Jesus fucking christ, Tony,” Mickey says, thumbing at his lip and eyeing the squirming kid again, trusting her less and less every second.  “How long?”

“Just a night,” Tony says, quick, like he can’t risk Mickey having another moment to think about it and changing his mind.  “Maybe less, I break the speed limit there and back.  Just a quick run, it’s Termite’s guys, you know they always do a fast deal.”

Mickey hesitates.  That’s his fatal mistake.  He hesitates, for just a second, but then before he can open his mouth to tell Tony he’ll have to find someone else, that Mickey isn’t eligible – he’s suddenly having a baby pressed into his arms, no idea how it happened.

“Here’s her shit,” Tony says as he shoves a plastic bag at Mickey as well, and then he’s walking away, and Mickey can’t even really process what’s happening, except that the kid’s got her little fingernails dug into his arm and it hurts a surprising amount.  So.  Apparently, this is happening.  He’s looking after a kid, for a whole night.  Stranger things have happened, probably, but he can’t really fucking think of any just then.  He sighs as he resigns himself to a miserable twenty four hours.

“Ay, Tony!” he calls out suddenly, remembering just when Tony’s almost to the curb.  “What the fuck’s her name?”

But Tony’s already getting in his car, and he doesn’t hear, just speeds off without even looking back at Mickey once.

Mickey looks down at the still-squirming bundle of snot who’s been piled awkwardly into his arms.  No mom, no name, fucking _Tony_ for a dad, and now she’s stuck with him as her babysitter.  Poor kid’s not getting off to a great start.

She chooses that moment to spit up on his shirt.

It’s gonna be a long night.

\--

The kid’s cute.  Her mom must have been black or something because she’s got dark skin, and her hair - though she doesn’t have much yet - is frizzy and wound into tight curls, badly tied up on the top of her head with a couple of pink rubber bands .  Really, it would be impossible to tell she was Tony’s kid at all, except for her grubbiness, and the fact that her eyes are the classic Milkovich ice-blue.

If the dirt and stained clothes and broken pacifier are anything to go by, she doesn’t seem to have been especially well taken care of, but at the same time she’s not starved, crying or obviously injured, so that’s already surpassed his expectations of Tony’s parenting.  And she’s chubby and wriggly and oddly silent, and yeah, beneath the dirt and spit, she’s cute.  He can admit that.

Of course, her fucking cuteness doesn’t actually help Mickey at all in the _looking after her_ fiasco.

As soon as he’s shut the door behind Tony, the kid still wriggling in his arms, Mickey looks around.  And realises - okay, he’d known this was a bad idea and hadn’t wanted to do it, but once he actually has the kid inside he actually realises how bad it is.  There’s not a _single_ safe corner in the Milkovich house to put her.

He wonders if she can sit up by herself, and shit like that.  He doesn’t have a fucking clue what ages babies can start to do what stuff, but he figures if she can wriggle as much as she is, she clearly control her own body to _some_ extent.  Manoeuvring around a knife that’s lying on the floor (and why the _fuck_ is there a knife on their floor?  He’s gonna kill Iggy), he makes his way to the couch, figures it’s his best bet.  He dumps the bag of stuff Tony’d given him onto the floor next to it, and then, carefully and with no amount of certainty, lowers the kid down too.

He tries to set her in a sitting position but she tumbles over to the side straight away.  She doesn’t seem to mind, though, just wriggles onto her stomach and kicks her little socked feet.  He notices that there’s a lighter laying on the cushion just behind her, and quickly knocks it to the ground.

Then he stares at her for a moment.  She’s not really… _doing_ anything.  Just lying there, looking happy enough to kick her feet and suck her broken pacifier and wriggle about a little.  He doesn’t really know what else he’s supposed to _do._ He takes some cushions off a chair and lays them on the ground by the couch.  She doesn’t look that interested in going anywhere but she’s rolled over once so he figures if she decides to do it again, she’ll go crashing to the ground, and that can’t be good.  At least the cushions will break her fall.

After he’s done that, he just stands there again.

His plans for the rest of the day before Tony’d shown up had included taking a shower, doing some coke, going out to break a few kneecaps and maybe get in a fuck with the weed dealer he’s recently figured out is a fag.  Somehow, none of that seems super compatible with babysitting.  He can’t even really leave her alone to go take a shower.  God knows what kind of trouble she’d get up to, and yeah, Mickey’s far from an angel, but he also doesn’t exactly want to add killing a cute little _baby_ to his record of misdeeds.

And yeah, okay, maybe Mickey’s daily routine isn’t actually that thrilling, these days.  He works a couple days a week at the Kash and Grab, but it’s not the same since – well, the last couple of years, it’s not been as fun as it used to.  He only really stays because he can’t be fucked to find another job, and it’s nice having a steady source of income even if it’s small, and, if he’s honest, he’s kind of reluctantly grown fond of Linda, who is one of the only people he’s ever met with balls bigger than his.  He works in slightly less legal ways too, breaking kneecaps for this low-level dealer Iggy knows, but that’s not exactly on a schedule.  And recently, his recreational activities are even more depleted than his employment.  Sometimes he does drugs to amuse himself, but not too much – he doesn’t wanna become a fucking addict on top of everything else.  He hangs out with Svetlana a little, every couple of weeks maybe, but she’s living and working on the other side of town now, and they’re hardly close.  Apart from her, Iggy and his crew of meth-head pseudo-friends are the only people Mickey actually interacts with.  Spelled out, his life is pretty sad.

So maybe it’s not actually that big of a deal to write off his tentative plans for the day and babysit instead.  It’s not like he’ll be having much fucking fun either way.

With a sigh, he sits down next to the kid on the couch.  Picks up the television remote.

At least this’ll give him a chance to catch up on _Ice Road Truckers._

\-- 

He watches TV with the kid for a couple of hours.  She seems to get bored after a little while, but he takes the batteries out of the remote and lets her play around with the buttons, and that amuses her for far longer than it probably should.  Every few seconds, he takes his eyes off the screen and glances down at her, insanely paranoid that she will have done something while he’s not looking and he’ll have to perform emergency first aid or something.

As it is, she doesn’t even make a sound until he’s starting the third episode.  That’s when she spits out her pacifier, and starts to cry.

“Shit,” he says, jumping slightly as he fumbles to mute the television and turns to see what’s wrong with her.  He figures jamming the pacifier back in her mouth will shut her up, but she won’t let him do that, struggles against it.  Her face is all screwed up and red, and she’s making this high pitched,  _whiny_ fucking cry, and it’s annoying but he’s also kind of super worried.

For the first time, he thinks to look inside the plastic bag Tony’d left him, hoping for any sort of clue as to what she might want.  As far as Mickey’s concerned there’s no way Tony can be a model parent, but if he’s had the kid for six months he might know _something_ about her.  In the bag there turns out to be a few diapers, a bottle, and a dented container full of baby formula that reminds him of the protein powder Nicky used to juice when he was obsessed with bodybuilding for a while.  He really _doesn’t_ want to change a diaper, so he decides to assume she’s hungry, and grabs the bottle and formula out of the bag.

Of course, then he realises he can’t go into the kitchen without leaving her alone, crying on the couch.  Swearing under his breath, he scoops her up in his arms as he stands.  Still crying, she snuggles into his neck, little hands resting against his shoulders.

He tries not to think that it’s adorable.  He usually feels pretty fucking uncomfortable when people touch him with anything resembling affection, but, well - this is a _baby._ He can’t mind too much.

He takes her, and the formula, into the shitty kitchen adjoined to their living room.  It’s not exactly great to prepare baby formula on the same table where Iggy’d been making meth last week, he decides, so he does a strange one-handed wipe down of the surfaces and then lays a cloth down over the top of the grubby table.  He’d feel worse about all of it, except that if the kid’s survived six months of _Tony’s_ parenting, he figures she has to be pretty resilient.

Making the formula is a fucking performance.  The kid won’t sit still in his arms, her little feet kicking against his stomach and her fists twisting in his shirt and hair, and she’s still crying, albeit quieter, this whiny sort of drone right next to his ear the whole time he’s boiling the water and trying to figure out how the fuck he’s supposed to prepare the weird powder.  Thankfully, there are instructions on the back of the dented box, but they’re complicated as fuck and he skips half the steps, figuring that if he’s gonna mess it up either way, she’d probably rather have her food sooner than later.  The instructions also don’t stop him from nearly pouring boiling hot water all over himself when the kid decides to yank his hair just as he picks up the pan. 

Still, a few minutes later they’re both still alive, and she’s propped up in his arms sucking happily at her bottle, no longer crying, and Mickey’s feeling like he just won a war.

He puts _Ice Road Truckers_ back on and doesn’t think about the fact that it’s kind of nice to have another human being curled up in his arms.

\--

At seven O’clock, her eyes begin to droop.

The whole time she’s been there she’s been wriggling like crazy, so her sudden tiredness is easy to spot.  She’s back lying on the couch, by then, and the relentless kicking of her little feet stills, and she makes a snuffling noise against the pacifier he’d managed to convince her to put back in her mouth, and her eyes wait longer and longer before opening after every blink, and it’s pretty obvious that she’s about ready for bed.

This, of course, because Mickey’s life could never be goddamn easy, creates a whole new set of problems.

She’s been happy enough on the couch but he can hardly let her sleep there.  When and if he himself drops off, she could totally roll off without him realising, hurt herself or something.  He assumes she can’t crawl but if she even managed to drop to the floor unharmed she’d be able to reach a fair few of the dangerous objects that litter the Milkovich carpet.  Plus, he doesn’t _really_ want to sit up on the couch with her all night.  He’d been bored of watching TV hours ago, but couldn’t really think of anything else to do with her in tow.

So Mickey does what he’s always done best; he improvises.  He scoops her up and takes her to his bedroom, pulls out the drawer full of guns and ammo that rests in the middle of his dresser and empties its contents into the drawer below, then sets it, empty, on the ground.  He puts the baby on his bed for a moment, grabs a spare blanket, and folds it up carefully inside the drawer.  It’s padded enough that she won’t hurt herself if she rolls over inside and hits the edge.  It’s hardly a crib but it’s the best she’s gonna fucking get here.

When he turns around, she’s asleep on his bed.  He thumbs at his lip, feeling awkward, not wanting to wake her.  Her dark eyelashes are fluttering slightly against her cheeks, her little hands flung up above her head.  She looks so _fucking peaceful;_ he wonders if he ever looked like that, or if he was always teetering on the edge of nerves and adrenaline, ready to fight from the moment he was born.

Holding his breath, he picks her up as slowly and carefully as she can, and sets her down in the makeshift crib.  She doesn’t wake up at all.

Then he crosses the room and opens his window.  Sits on the ledge, half leaning out into the crisp air, and smokes three cigarettes in a row.  He’s careful to blow the smoke out, away from the baby.  Almost laughs at himself for caring - knowing Tony’s standards her mom was probably on meth the whole time she was pregnant anyway, and he’s worried about smoking a fucking cigarette in the same room as her - but does it anyway.  If she’s a Milkovich, after all, she’s not gonna need any extra help getting fucked up.

When he glances back at her, he thinks it’s a shame that something so precious can be born into a family so screwed.  She doesn’t stand a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, he wakes up with a start to the sound of a small, whimpering wail.

For a second he forgets everything and reaches for the gun under his pillow on instinct.  It's only when he’s half scrambled out of bed and is getting ready to attack that it all comes flooding back to him.  He looks down; the kid is still on the floor, in the drawer he’d set up for her, and she’s the source of the noise which had woken him, not some imaginary intruder with a really fucking high pitched cry of a voice.  She appears to have survived the night.  That’s a victory.

It’s a few moments after he’s recovered from the near heart-attack her cry had woken him with that he notices his eyes are heavy and tired, and there’s no light streaming in through the broken drapes.  Rubbing his face blearily and dropping the gun back onto his bed, he grabs his shitty alarm clock and squints down at the screen.

It’s fucking _one_ in the morning.

He groans, but the kid just wails louder, and he really needs to shut her up.  He flicks his bedside lamp on and trudges over there, scoops her up.  He wonders what she’s crying about - more specifically he wonders how the fuck he’s supposed to _know_ what she’s crying about.  He doesn’t know shit about babies.

Except that they’re pretty damn small so they probably need to eat a lot, he realises, and decides she must want more formula.  He’s already out his bedroom door, jiggling her idly in his arms in a tired attempt to get her to calm down, when he catches a whiff of her ass, and realises she needs her fucking diaper changed.

Mickey can handle blood and guts.  He’s been shot twice, and he’s shot other people more than twice.  He’s hit people with baseball bats and watched them bleed.  He can handle pain, too; the _being shot twice_ thing attests to that, and the days were he used to have pretty rough butt sex on the regular.  He’s got nothing against pain when it’s a part of life.  He thinks that makes him tough.

But changing a fucking dirty diaper is seriously one of the few things he’d _never_ wanted to do.

If there was ever gonna be a benefit to being gay, he figured it’d be that he’d never get stuck with a kid and have to do all this gross crap.  But yeah, he’s never had the best of luck, and the kid’s hardly going anywhere so he doesn’t seem himself getting out of it.  Grumbling under his breath, he finds the bag Tony’d left him, gets one of the diapers out of it, and lies the kid down on the floor.  She’s still crying and wriggling and it doesn’t actually make the whole thing very easy.

The first time he thinks he’s done, he picks her up and the diaper falls straight off again; he’d forgotten to rip the sticky tape off the tabs.  The kid’s at least stopped crying so hard by that stage, but as he lays her back down for the second attempt at securing the diaper, he still finds himself mumbling at her to be quiet.

“Shut the fuck up,” is what he actually says, no harshness behind his voice - his fair amount of exhaustion softening it.  “Can’t you see I’m fucking doing it?  I’d like to see you change a fucking diaper, give me a break.”

Strangely, while he’s speaking, her crying dulls to a quiet snuffle.  As soon as he stops, she starts with the wailing again, but it’s quieter and hell of a lot less annoying than it had been before.

Mickey’s apparently discovered the secret of parenting - just straight up telling them to shut the fuck up. 

When she’s clean and he’s disposed of the other disgusting diaper, he goes into the kitchen and makes her some more formula, since that’s the only other reason he can think of that she would still be crying.  This time, in his tired groggy state, he actually does end up splashing the hot liquid all over himself when he’s trying to shake up the bottle.  He swears, not so much under his breath as really fucking loudly, but it at least alerts him to the fact that he needs to let it cool down a bit before he gives it to the kid.  Last time his own incompetence at mixing the stuff up had probably been the only thing that stopped her from getting scalded.

She can’t really sit up and he doesn’t want her to choke to death so he keeps her in his arms as she drinks.  He collapses down onto the couch, letting his head fall back against it and his eyes flutter shut.  He never did take to being woken up very well.  He’s careful not to let himself drift back off, though, until the kid’s finished her bottle and then spit half of it back up again on his shirt, and is no longer crying, instead gurgling happily and wriggling about again.

He throws the empty bottle in the sink, and goes back to bed.  She doesn’t seem to be sleepy anymore, but he dumps her in the drawer-crib anyway, figuring she can’t get up to any shenanigans in there.  She has her pacifier, and he has a desperate need to sleep some more.

The next time he wakes up, she’s crying again, but it’s seven in the morning so he figures he can deal.  They do diaper and formula again, things running only marginally smoother than they had at one in the morning.  At least this time he remembers to stick the tabs on her diaper down.

And, again, he has shit he needs to do but he can’t really _do_ any of it when she’s there.  Still, he doubts Tony’ll be especially on time to pick her up, and he can’t waste another day watching TV.  Instead he ventures with great bravery into Iggy’s room, digs around under the bed until he finds the old, dented, virus-ridden laptop his brothers use for porn.  He tries to avoid it when possible, but, hey, it’s the closest thing he can get to the outside world while the kid’s kicking around on the couch, crying and pooping and eating and requiring constant supervision.

He finds an unlocked wifi and spends the rest of the day on the internet.  It’s almost close to productive, but not really.  The kid is still pretty demanding.

When it gets to seven in the evening, he starts to get pissed.  He knows his brother, and he has a horrible feeling Tony’s decided to go out with Iggy after they finished whatever job they were on.  If that’s the case, it could be days before they emerge from their drug-fuelled haze enough to even remember Tony _has_ a kid, let alone that she’s stuck with her incompetent uncle.  He wishes he was surprised by this thought, but Tony’s never been the most reliable of Mickey’s brothers, and that’s a pretty low bar to start with.

Last he heard, Tony didn’t have a cell.  Tony doesn’t exactly have friends, either.  There’s not actually a way for Mickey to get hold of him and complain about any of this.

He’s pissed, but it’s not like he can throw the kid out on the street or something.  She literally doesn’t have anyone else.  Fucking scary as that is - and fucking unlucky for her, really - he can’t get away from it.  Tony’s not back, so he puts her to sleep in his room again when her little eyes start to droop, and he feeds her more formula and changes her diapers again, and before he knows it, another night has passed.

And Tony’s still not back. 

\--

The next day, he gets out the shitty porn laptop again, and in his paranoia that he’s permanently screwing up the kid in his few days of babysitting, looks up some sites about parenting.  If the kid’s six months old, like Tony’d said, the internet seems to think she should be eating more than just baby formula.  So he makes her some mashed potatoes from a sachet he finds in the cupboard which isn’t totally out of date, spoons it into her mouth.  More of it gets in his hair than down her throat, but still, she seems happy enough about it.

Thing is, that’s the only sachet of mashed potatoes they have, and they don’t have any other baby-friendly food about, or really any food at all – their fridge is mostly beer and poppers, one expired block of cheese and a ketchup bottle he’s refusing to admit is empty.  And also, the supplies Tony’d left him with are running short – the kid needs more diapers, and formula, and some other baby food that _isn’t_ formula, and a pacifier that isn’t so broken she’s in danger of chewing off the rubber teet and choking to death.  He’s pissed about it, but he has some cash, and if Tony’s doing a job then he can reimburse Mickey when he comes home. 

Besides, it’s been a couple of days – it’d be nice to get out of the fucking house, even for something as lame as shopping for diapers.

So Mickey doesn’t think about it too much, just bundles the kid up in a blanket – because seriously, her fucking onesie and overalls are nowhere near enough protection against the Chicago winter, he doesn’t know what the fuck Tony was thinking – and heads out to the store.

\--

The Kash and Grab is shut, so he walks the few extra blocks to the giant chain supermarket he usually tries to avoid.  He gets a cart with a baby seat in the front, and the kid seems to find being pushed around in it hilarious, laughing and making strange little squeaking, babbling sounds as she watches their surroundings.  Inside it’s like a fucking maze, it takes him a while to even _find_ the baby stuff; even longer to sort out what of it he needs.  He shoves a couple of generic multipacks of diapers into the cart, a three-pack of cheap pacifiers, then turns to the food.

There’s a whole fucking _row_ of baby food, different brands and types, and he squints at the labels but nothing seems to make sense.  He can’t remember what type of formula he’d been giving the kid before, can’t remember the brand or what age range it had stamped on the side or if it was _milk substitute_ or _follow on milk_ or what.  The actual food is even more daunting; there are shelves upon shelves filled with jars and tins and boxes and tubes, he has no fucking idea where to even start.

“You’re a lot of fucking work,” he mutters down at the kid, who’s wriggling about happily in the little plastic cart seat, slobbering all over her knuckles.

Just as he’s idly considering just dropping the kid off on the doorstep of the nearest hospital and washing his hands of this whole mess, a woman he’s never met before in his life walks over to him.  She’s got a big shopping cart filled with shit and a kid swinging off each arm, twins, maybe five or six years old.  She walks straight up to Mickey, and smiles.

“Do you need some help, love?” she asks, amusement in her voice.  Mickey scowls on impulse and opens his mouth to tell her to fuck off; the second before the words can escape, however, he realises that would actually be fucking great.  Not totally killing this kid by mistake is probably worth swallowing a little bit of his worthless pride. 

“Uh, yeah,” he admits to her.  “It’s, uh, this is my brother’s kid, I’ve never really looked after her before.”

“Do you know how old she is?” the woman asks, batting one of her own kids’ hand away from a candy bar in her shopping cart without even looking away from Mickey.

“Six months,” he replies, is glad that’s the one fucking thing Tony actually told him.

“Has she started solid food already?”

“Uh, yeah,” he replies, then hopes that was true before he’d fed her yesterday.  “Mashed potato, stuff like that.  She’s having that formula crap too, though, I think.”

“Okay,” the woman says and starts pulling things off the shelf without even fucking consulting him.  “Here, this formula is the best for a baby her age, and it comes in nice big containers so it’ll last you a while.  And you don’t wanna give her anything too complicated when she’s first starting out on foods, but look, you can get these little jars of purees that are specially designed for younger babies, they’re nice and simple – the fruit ones are nice, get her some apple, some banana…”

She tosses a bunch of little jars into his cart.

“Uh,” he says, not quite sure how to respond – he’s feeling a strange urge to tip her.  “Thanks.”

“That should get you through a couple of nights,” she says, smiling wide.  “She’s an adorable baby.”

She says that like it’s some sort of compliment to Mickey, but he finds that incredibly dumb, since he’d already told her the kid wasn’t his and since even if she was his her looks wouldn’t really be any fucking _achievement_.  Still, she’s been nice, so he doesn’t say any of that, just does his best attempt at a non-threatening smile and pushes his cart away.

As he’s heading out of the aisle, he spots a bunch of baby clothes.  Looks down at the kid, strangely bundled up in a blanket, only her pink overalls and socks on underneath.  There’s a couple of items marked _clearance,_ and one of them is a thick puffy coat; it says it’s for ten month olds, so it’s too big for her, and it’s an obnoxious shiny pink with fake fur in the hood, kind of the definition of white trash.  But he doubts she cares about any of that, and it’s spring, but it’s a cold spring even for Chicago, the snow only melted for a couple of weeks and the air still snapping at any exposed skin brazen enough to touch it.  He doesn’t understand how the fuck Tony had thought it was okay to carry the kid around in just her fucking onesie and overalls, her arms bare and the rest of her only thinly covered.  Mickey’s hardly fucking _nurturing_ but even he would feel bad about that.  He doesn’t want her to freeze.  So without thinking about it too hard, he adds the coat to the cart, a couple more pairs of tiny socks while he’s at it, because the pair she’s wearing are odd and one of them has a hole in.  Tony can just pay him back for it all later, no big deal.

The kid’s smiling up at him from her seat.  As he waits in line for the checkout, he, strangely, finds himself smiling back.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

A month passes without Mickey even noticing.

It’s pretty easy to fall into a routine with the kid, despite his best efforts not to.  He feeds her and changes her and plays with her.  He figures out her schedule, what times of day she needs to nap and how long for, when she’s grouchiest and when she’s on her happy, squirmy best behaviour, when she wants formula and when she wants proper food.  His own life had never had much consistency to it, so it’s easy enough to build himself around her, to adjust the few commitments he ever had so that she’s fixed squarely at the centre.

The first time he’s supposed to work at the Kash and Grab after he acquires her, he just brings her along to work.  Linda eyes him with confusion and more than a little distrust, says, “You do know it’s not customary for people to bring babies to work with them?” but actually doesn’t mind too much once he’s explained the situation in the simplest terms possible.  Her youngest is a toddler, now, so she even hooks him up with some of her old baby stuff.  Once he’s got the kid in one of those baby-carseat-with-a-handle things, there’s nothing to stop him lugging her around wherever he goes.

So when he works at the Kash and Grab she sits behind the counter happily, ripping up old magazines or gnawing on day-old donuts.  At home, she plays with anything, all the household objects he never would have thought would amuse a baby.  It’s surprisingly easy to find shit to do with her – she’ll play with a wooden spoon for an hour, chewing on it and banging it against stuff, an old broken phone or remote control with the batteries taken out will amuse her for longer than any of the actual baby toys Linda’d given him.  She’s still mostly on formula, but has some proper food every day too.  Her three staples are mashed potatoes, baby oatmeal, and bananas.  She still sleeps in the blanket-padded drawer, but naps in her carrier sometimes.

And that’s it.  That’s what she does, that’s what _he_ does since looking after her is pretty much his only task these days.  Her whole fucking existence can be boiled down to just a few simple tasks, on repeat. 

In the month he hasn’t noticed passing, he’s tried his best to track down Tony.  But, honestly, it was an attempt doomed before it even began.  He’s had no luck – hadn’t even really known where to start.

Still, he can’t fucking wait until Tony gets back.  He hates to admit it, but he’s grown pretty fucking fond of the kid, who is sweet and quiet and wriggly and funny and listens to him when he talks and sometimes sleeps curled up on his chest.  But he misses his old life – he definitely _wasn’t_ built for parenting.  So, it’s been a nice experiment, but her real dad has to take her back sometime.  Mickey just hopes it’s sooner rather than later.

\--

The day of the call, Mickey’s not at work.  A cockroach problem that nobody had really noticed had suddenly become out of control, when Linda’s oldest son accidentally punched a hole in the wall trying to practice football in the back room, and bugs had come _pouring_ out of the plaster.  Mickey thinks the kid’s gonna be traumatised for life by that; it was pretty gruesome.  So Linda’s begrudgingly called in the exterminators and closed the store for three whole days, and Mickey’s taking the opportunity to do a thorough amount of _nothing._

The TV’s on in the background, blasting some news show that had come on after a cartoon, but Mickey’s not paying attention to it.  He’s lying on his back on the sofa, laughing his fucking head off at the kid – he’s holding her up under the armpits, up in the air, and letting her walk all over his chest, her tiny little feet tickling him as she stamps them up and down happily.  She’s babbling some nonsense sounds, _be ba guh uh boo,_ and she’s still usually one of the quietest kids ever but when she gets excited like this she starts chatting away, it’s fucking adorable.  She’s got the dumbest expression on her face, too, a big gummy smile and eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and there’s banana smeared across her chin and he just _can’t stop laughing._

She doesn’t mind.  When he laughs, she laughs; she actually just likes it when he makes any sound at all.  She’s odd like that.

He’s just lifting her up even further to turn her into an airplane, one of her favourite fucking games even if it does sometimes end with her spitting on his face, when the phone rings.  He hesitates for a moment, debates just ignoring it because he _really_ wants to keep playing with the kid, she’s having such a fucking good time, but in the end his curiosity wins out.  Nobody _ever_ calls their landline.

So he sets her down in her carrier, straps her in across the waist because he knows how fucking squirmy she is and doesn’t trust her for a moment when he turns his back, and then quickly crosses to the kitchen, grabs the phone on the last ring and shoves it up to his ear.

“What?” he answers.

“Ey, yo, Mickey,” says the voice on the other end, and Mickey _knows_ that voice.

“ _Tony_ ,” Mickey says, his whole body flooding with relief, fucking _finally._ “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Fucking _jail,_ man!  Three years minimum, Iggy only got one, can you believe this shit?” Tony sounds annoyed, like he’s being hard done by.  Mickey wonders what he’s in for; then thinks, _fuck,_ fuck, it takes it a moment to hit him but holy fucking _fuck,_ the kid’s actual dad is in fucking jail and if Tony hadn’t been able to find someone to fucking _babysit_ a month ago, he doubts he’s gonna be able to find someone for her to live with for three fucking _years,_ and that means –

“What the fuck should I do with the kid, then?”

“Huh?” Tony says, actually fucking _pauses,_ doesn’t know who Mickey’s talking about, and god and fucking Jesus, Mickey’s said it before and he’ll say it again, his brothers are all such _pieces of shit._

“Your kid, man, the little fucking baby you dropped off at my place a _month_ ago.”

“Oh, shit, her!” Tony says.  “Hey, man, can you just keep her?  I guess, like, ‘til I get out, or her piece of shit mom comes crawling back, whichever’s first.”

“Fuck off,” Mickey says, but Tony doesn’t seem to hear it.

“Thanks, man,” he says, instead of offering another solution, another person he can turn to.  “I owe you one.”

Tony hangs up before Mickey can get any other information – what jail he’s in, what he’s in for, who the kid’s “piece-of-shit mom” actually _is._ What the kid’s fucking _name_ is.  That would’ve been nice to know.

He throws the phone on the ground so hard he hears a smash.  Runs his hands through his hair, over his face, mumbles, “ _fuck, fuck, fucking fuck,”_ wonders what he’s gonna fucking do.

He can’t keep the kid.  He just can’t.  He’s Mickey fucking Milkovich, he has a life, he can’t have a fucking _kid._ He in no way _wants_ a fucking kid.  This isn’t him, this isn’t the way his life is supposed to go.

Then he looks down, and she’s there, in her carrier, kicking her little socked feet up and down, chubby hands playing with a set of brass knuckles.  When she looks at him, she smiles, so big he can see all three of her tiny teeth, her freckled nose scrunching up, blue eyes squinting.

He thinks he might be fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

The summer passes in a sticky blur of popsicles and sunburn and twelve-hour work days, and before Mickey knows what’s happening, autumn is creeping up on them.

And he still has the kid.

He’s, honestly, not sure how he feels about that.  Everything’s just kind of _happened_ and he hasn’t had much say in it so he hasn’t really thought about it either, or he’s tried not to, at least.  He’s never wanted a baby, _still_ doesn’t want a baby.  He doesn’t want _her_ , at all, but he doesn’t want her to end up in foster care either, knows first-hand how shitty that can be.  So he’s keeping her until a better option comes along.

At least, that’s what he tells people.

Truth is – well.  Truth is, he’s the only one she smiles at.  Truth is, she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and will only fall back asleep if she’s in his arms.  Truth is, since Mandy grew up and left, Mickey’s never felt like anyone _needed_ him like this kid does.  Truth is Mandy never really needed him that much anyway.  Truth is –

Well.  Mickey kind of _loves_ taking care of a baby, and, it seems, she for some fucked up reason loves being taken care of by _him_.

Something about his voice seems to soothe her.  He can’t understand it, because nobody has ever found a single thing about him _calming_ before.  But when she’s fussing and refusing to go to sleep, he talks to her, and it helps her drop off.  He makes his voice a little softer, quieter, lower than usual, and he tells her stories.  Stories about his own life, because he doesn’t know any others, which means he kind of actually _talks_ to her in a way he’s never talked to anyone.  She stares up at him from her crib with her fucking huge blue eyes, sucking on her pacifier, like she knows exactly what he’s talking about.  Maybe it’s the fact that she _doesn’t_ know that lets him be so open with her, but he says things that he never thought he’d even be able to admit to himself, let alone to another person.

He says, _I like guys,_ and _there was this one kid, a fucking nightmare, broke my fucking heart._ He talks to her about freckle constellations and bright red hair, stupid wide open smiles, nearly-dates and how fucking afraid he was every single second of his life he spent with other people.

He tells her, _I killed my dad,_ and she doesn’t rat him out.

Since he doesn’t have a clue of the actual date, on the six month anniversary of Tony dropping the kid off, he declares it her first birthday.  He buys her a chocolate cupcake and doesn’t complain when she mushes ninety-nine percent of it over his clothes instead of into her mouth; Linda gives her a couple of outfits which are offensively pink but actually fit properly; Svetlana sends a card written in Russian with ten crumpled dollar bills stuffed inside.  He uses that money to buy the kid a teddy bear that they find at a garage sale one day when they’re walking to the park.  It’s purple and fluffy and only slightly bedraggled looking, and is wearing a clearly homemade Metallica t-shirt.  The kid loves it.

His own birthday is two weeks later.  He doesn’t celebrate.

The next day, he gets a text from Mandy.

[ Oct.31.15 -- 17:43 -- From: Mands ]

 _still alive. hppy 20th btw._  

That’s three more words than he usually gets, so he guesses it comes under the category of ‘descriptive’.  She always uses the same number when she texts him every few months to let him know she’s still okay, but she always ignores him if he responds, so he usually doesn’t bother.  This time, though, for some strange reason, he gives it a shot.  He asks where she is.

Actually, he says:

[ Oct.31.15 -- 17:52 -- To: Mands ]

_all bros in jail.  1 year for Iggy, 3 for Tony, 25 for Nicky.  im still home, where the fuck r u?_

She doesn’t respond for twenty four hours.  He gives the kid her dinner, puts her to bed, sleeps, gets up the next morning, gives the kid her breakfast, gets them both dressed, goes to work, comes back from work six hours later, gives the kid her dinner, gives the kid a bath.  They’re sat around watching cartoons - that Mickey tells himself he is _definitely_ not enjoying more than the kid, _uh-uh no way_ \- when his phone rings.

He answers hesitantly.  Nobody really calls him anymore.

It’s Mandy’s voice on the other end.

“Fuckface, how’s it going?” she asks, like it’s nothing, like it hasn’t been nearly two fucking years with only the occasional two-word text to tell him she wasn’t dead.  If she was there, he’d hit her, twist her nipples, pull her hair, scream in her face.  As it is, he’s kind of just fucking relieved to hear her voice.

“Douchebag,” he says, and she laughs.  “Where the fuck’ve you been?”

“Around,” she says.  “Before you fucking ask again, I’m not telling you where.”

There’s a beat of silence.  He hadn’t really been expecting her to fess up, after all this time, but still.

“Well,” he says, feeling a little awkward, though he tells himself that’s ridiculous – it’s fucking _Mandy,_ he’s wiped vomit off her hair and seen her piss and lost to her in video games at 3am, he shouldn’t ever feel awkward talking to his little fucking sister.  “How’ve you been, then?”

“Pretty good,” she says, and he can almost hear her smile, and that’s _nice._ “Better than before, anyway.  It’s nice, y’know?  Being… away, from it all.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he points out.  Except – well, yeah, how could it not be nice to be away from all this, so he gets what she’s saying.  “You… so, what, you finished school?  Got a job?  Got any friends or shit?”

“Didn’t bother with school, but I got a job at a diner.  It’s not great, I take the night shift and the uniform itches like a bitch, but it’s better than nothing.  And, um.  I have – some roommates.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.  Um.  Well – actually, I’m living with Ian.  We kinda moved out here together.  When I left a couple of years ago.”

“I figured,” says Mickey.  And his voice is flat, even he can hear it, his voice is flat and he ignores the churning in his stomach, the way his body feels suddenly restless, the way the itch under his skin lights up just like it always does when he hears Ian’s name.  “You guys disappeared on the same day, so I think everyone kinda thinks you ran off together.  Eloped or some shit.”

She snorts at that, like she thinks it’s funny, like it hasn’t been killing Mickey all these years that everybody thinks his little sister and the guy he – well, and Ian, _his_ Ian, everybody thinks they ended up together.  And the world is a heap of shit because all Mickey wants is to be able to tell the truth and not get killed for it, but he knows if there were ever rumours that _he_ and Ian had run off together, they wouldn’t get the same fucking fanfare that Ian and Mandy had.  They’d get a whole different class of reactions, the kind that might even follow them to wherever the fuck they moved and ruin their lives all over again.  He hates the world where straight people are so _fucking_ lucky. 

“Yeah, well, they don’t know the whole fucking story,” Mandy replies.  Mickey doesn’t know how to respond to that.  _He_ knows the whole fucking story, sure.  So does she, or at least she thinks she does, she knows enough for it to matter.  He waits a long beat before responding, staring down at the kid, who’s sleeping peacefully.  Maybe looking at her makes him brave enough to say it, or maybe it’s the fact that it’s been two years and he’s done a whole lot of growing up, maybe it’s the fact that in some ways, he doesn’t have anything to _lose_ anymore.

“It’s nice knowing for sure that you’re together,” he tells her.  “Time was you were my two favourite people in the world, so.  I wouldn’t trust either of you with anyone but each other.”

He knows she wouldn’t have been expecting him to admit that.  He’d never said out loud what Ian meant to him, she’d tried to guess at it but was probably still unsure.  He’d never really told _her_ what she meant to him, either, but he thinks she must have known that anyway.

“Oh,” she replies.  “Okay.”

Nothing more than that.  But still, even hearing her voice after all this time, it’s kind of nice.  It’s weird and he’s still fidgeting from the intensity of hearing Ian’s name, and he doesn’t feel comfortable, feels totally on edge, but still.  It’s nice, to talk to her.  
  
“So, tell me about your shitty job, then. 

She does, talking about her asshole boss and the funny cook and the coffee maker that gives you a mini electric shock if you use it at the same time as the dishwasher, saying a lot but not really _saying_ anything.  It doesn’t matter.  He’s missed talking to her.  He doesn’t get much human contact these days, if he’s honest, but Mandy would be special even if he did.

“Oh, shit, I have to go,” she says suddenly, halfway through a sentence about the time she smashed her manager’s head against the counter when he tried to feel up one of her other roommates.  “It was nice talking to you or whatever, douchebag.”

“Yeah, yeah, go eat a dick,” he says, and smiles when she laughs.  “You gonna call again?”

But she’s already hung up.

He only realises afterwards that he never mentioned the kid.  But, well, Mandy’s far away now, it’s not like it affects her.  She probably wouldn’t care all that much.  He shrugs it off, because that’s when the kid blinks open her eyes, scrunches up her face, starts crying.  He sighs, throws his phone onto the couch, scoops up the little girl and heads into the kitchen.

All night, he goes about his routine, he looks after the kid and tries not to think about anything too much, but he feels strangely restless.  Just thinking of Mandy and her new life, how she’d come from nothing just like him but how she’s actually managed to get _out_ of their shitty situation.  Sure, she’s got four roommates and she’s working nights at a zero-star diner and she still doesn’t have a high school diploma.  But on the phone, she hadn’t sounded like she cared about any of that.  She’d sounded _happy._

The kid’s having a fussy night, and his eyes are heavy by the time he finally gets her down to sleep.  He crawls into his bed and tries to pass out, tries to focus on the soft small sounds of her breathing and not the rest of the fucked up world, but he feels – it’s strange, he feels like his heartbeat is too loud.  He feels like the walls are closing in on him.

He’s suddenly aware of just how _small_ his world is.  Mickey’s never even left Chicago.  Only been away from the south side on a few select occasions.  Apart from Juvie, he’s always just lived in this one house, this one room has always been his.  And it’s never felt like it’s closing in on him, before now.

He feels claustrophobic.  He feels – like he wants to break _out,_ like he’s being locked in.  It’s not worse than what he’s always felt in this miserable house before, but it’s – different.  It’s a different kind of horrible.  Oh well.  At least it’s keeping life interesting.

He fidgets about all night, and never quite manages to get to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

Mickey was seven when his aunt Rande moved back to Chicago.

She’d been living in Philadelphia for long before he was born, and to be honest, he’d never even heard her name until she turned up on their doorstep on day, claiming to be his dad’s sister.  Mickey hadn’t believed her, til his mom had come to the door and confirmed it.

Rande had only moved back to Chicago when she got diagnosed with MS, he found out years later, to be closer to her family.  Why the fuck anyone who was sick would want to be near the Milkoviches, Mickey would never figure out – it wasn’t like they were some caring, close-knit bunch, in reality they rarely looked out for anyone but themselves, Mickey thought sometimes that being around his family was more likely to _make_ you sick than cure you.  Still, Rande had seen some reason to come back to them, and Terry had taken advantage of her moving into a house just a couple of blocks away, sending him and Mandy there over at every chance he got.  After their mom died and Terry went to jail in the same month, Mandy lived over there for a couple of years.  Mickey had to stay home with their brothers, even spend a couple weeks in a foster home before one of his uncles came and busted him out.  He was jealous of Mandy, though he couldn’t admit it; he went to visit her every chance he got.

And while he was over there, Rande, who was tough and hard and the opposite of maternal but still managed to be kind to them, would feed them junk food and let them choose the television channel and wouldn’t complain if they laughed too loud so long as they fetched her a beer when she asked for one.  But somehow, none of those were Mickey and Mandy’s favourite things about her – their favourite thing was when she would tell them stories.  Or, more accurately, when she would complain about Chicago. 

She’d talk about the great friends she had when she was living in Philly all those years, how much fun she had there, how her apartment was fucking awesome and had a great view and hot water that always worked, nothing like the shithole falling-down house she was renting in Chicago, or how the weather was better in Philly, the winters milder, she said it was always sunny there even when it wasn’t.  She’d tell them so many fucking stories about her life there, her crazy ass adventures, all the fun things she did with her friends, her friends’ kids.  The kind of things nobody ever did with Mandy and Mickey.

One night, when the two of them were curled up under a ratty old duvet on the double bed in Rande’s spare room, Mandy got out a torch and they made a tent out of the sheets. Sat up, cross legged and facing each other in the yellow-lit darkness with the blankets draped over their heads, pretending it was just them and the neon streetlamp light coming in through the window didn’t exist, the sirens and drunken yells outside didn’t exist, the whole fucking world didn’t exist.  Mickey had snuck an Oreo from downstairs; he pretended to want it to himself, but then split it in half anyway, gave the bigger half to Mandy.

“Mick?” she’d asked, while he was licking the cream off his Oreo half and trying not to think about anything.

“What?” he’d shot back.

“When we’re older, can we move to Philadelphia?”

Mickey thought about all Rande’s stories.  Thought about the fun things she’d said kids there did, thought about how nice all the people she described were, thought about the way her face had lit up when she was talking about her life there in a way he’d never seen anyone’s face light up when they were talking about life in _this_ neighbourhood.  And then he thought about the fact that he was only a year older than Mandy but he was growing up so, so much faster, because once when his dad was drunk and angry and hitting Mickey, he’d told him that he would never get out of the south side, that he would live and fucking die here, and at only ten years old Mickey already knew in his heart of hearts that would be true.

“Sure, Mands,” he’d said, instead of any of that, because he could see her big blue eyes lit up by the flickering torch and they were looking at him with something like _hope,_ which Mandy didn’t have much of, these days. “When we’re older.”

\--

On the eighth day after Mandy’s call, Mickey’s late to work.  The kid had decided to piss all over him during the few minutes he let her be diaper-less for her bath, and he’d had to take another shower and get changed.  He isn’t exactly mad at the baby – who is, basically, just a baby, and can’t really help it – but still, his mood was hardly improved by the event.

And his mood was bad enough already.  He hasn’t been sleeping, since Mandy called.  He’s still feeling strange and restless and itching under his skin, and though the kid still doesn’t sleep through the whole night, he can’t really blame his exhaustion on her.  He’s smoking even more than usual, every second he can get away from the kid or is near a window he can lean out of he’s lighting up a cigarette, trying to calm his strange, jittering nerves.  He’s not used to feeling like this.  He doesn’t _like_ feeling like this. Like he might, maybe, be kind of missing out on something.  Mickey’s used to making the most out of the absolute nothing he is presented with by the world.

And he can’t stop thinking about his Aunt Rande.

So, all of this adds up to him being late to work. When he pushes into the store, Linda opens her mouth to say something about his tardiness, but seems to spot his expression and decide against it, just huffing out an irritated sigh and glaring at him instead.

All day, he sits slumped at the counter, closing his eyes in between customers – knowing it’s safe because he couldn’t drop off even if he wanted to.  Linda keeps walking around, up and down the aisles, drifting past the edge of the counter over and over again all day, which is odd because Linda doesn’t usually ever walk anywhere without a purpose.  Mickey gets the sense she wants to say something to him, but he’s too fucking tired and annoyed to beat it out of her, decides to let her get there in his own sweet time.

He doesn’t have the energy to play with the kid properly, like he usually does during the day, so instead he tries to amuse her with quiet things that she can do herself – her teddy bear, teething rings, a large amount of food.  When it comes time to close up the store, he could cry with relief, he just wants to go home and sleep for a month and even though he knows there’s no way in hell that’ll even nearly happen, he’d like to try and get a head start on more than a _couple_ of hours tonight.  He’s just packing up all the kid’s shit as fast as is humanely possible when Linda once again appears from upstairs.

This time, she’s walking with her usual purposeful stride, straight up to the counter to face him head on, stare him down.  He looks at her for a moment before deciding he doesn’t have time for her shit, looking down, starting the final few tasks he has to do before heading home.

“So here’s the deal,” she says.  “I don’t usually make a habit of helping people out for no reason; it doesn’t ever seem to end up in my best interests.  I have a feeling I’m going to regret doing this, but I’ve somehow accidentally found myself liking you over the last couple of years, so screw it.”

“The fuck you talking about?” Mickey asks, his attention only half on her as he counts out the register, thinks about how fucking comfortable his bed is gonna feel when he gets home.

“You have to get out of this neighbourhood."

And _that_ gets his attention.  His head snaps up, brows furrowing together as he stares at her.  He has no idea what she’s on about, but it sounds like it’s gonna be a hassle.

“ _What_?” he asks, can’t think of a single thing to add.

“I’m telling you what you need, Mickey, whether you like it or not.  Like I said, I don’t enjoy doing this, but this is one of those times I feel like helping someone out might be _necessary._ So, I’m telling you, you _need_ to get out of this neighbourhood.”

“I ain’t exactly in a position to take a fucking vacation,” he says, and she scowls at him and yeah, okay, he knows that’s not what she means.  He takes a deep breath, decides to try and be candid. “Look, that’s just not even on the fucking table, okay, so back off.”

“Well, I’m _putting_ it on the table,” she says.  Rests her hands on the counter in front of him, and he stares at them, instead of her face.  Her nails are unpainted and bitten down; she still wears her wedding ring. “When I was growing up, my parents had a store like this one.  Now my sister owns it.  It’s in Philadelphia.  And I’ll be the first to say that city's nothing special, but it’s a hell of a lot better than here and you might actually have a _chance_ there.  So, you’re gonna quit this job, and you’re gonna go work for her instead.  I’ve already talked to her.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?” Mickey asks. He’s not even entertaining the idea that she might be serious; things like that just don’t _happen_ to him, he’s accepted that, this is some kind of strange joke or else she’s serious in intent, but it will never actually work out.

“That little girl deserves better than you raising her here,” Linda says, and then huffs out a heavy sigh, rubs her hand over her face.  “I knew about you and Ian, Mickey.  I knew about you two the whole time, and I didn’t say anything, and when he left I knew it was because of you and I _still_ didn’t say anything, because frankly it didn’t seem like any of my business.  But I know you’re never gonna be happy here, and your daughter deserves better than that.  So, you’re going to go and work for my sister, and you’re gonna take that kid with you and you’re gonna give her a fighting chance in life.  We clear?”

Mickey just stares at her. It’s not really happening. Seriously, honestly, he can’t believe it, it’s just too strange, so it’s not really happening. His brain just shuts down; too much new information has been thrown at him, he can’t even choose what to process first, so he just stares at her and he doesn’t say anything and he _can’t_ say anything, he can’t even think.

“We’ll talk about it again tomorrow,” Linda says, like she thinks the conversation’s fucking _over,_ like Mickey has a clue what’s going on.  “I’m taking the boys to soccer, lock up when you leave.”

She turns the sign to _closed_ and then ferries her kids out the door, the bell tinkling behind her, and Mickey is just left in the rubble.

It’s just that – he’s not thinking about it, he’s not.  His whole life, Mickey never thought he would get out of the south side, or ever even really thought he _wanted_ to – for all its many, many flaws, this neighbourhood had always been home to him.  He was a product of his environment, he knew that, everything about him had been built by this place and its specific brand of rules and the people in it; if he left that, half of his personality and skillset would become immediately irrelevant.

But then – it’s _Philly._ It’s ridiculous, because that’s just a city, there’s nothing _special_ about it compared to any other place, he’s heard plenty of people call it a shithole, logically he doesn’t have a single reason to wanna move there.  But – it’s just so fucking crazy, that it’s the place Rande always used to talk about.  And Linda’s offering him a chance to move there, maybe, if that deal doesn’t really turn out to be too good to be true.  It’s the place Rande told them fucking _fairytales_ of, the only time everything in her life wasn’t total shit was when she was living there.  And Mickey knows, logically, that wasn’t by virtue of the place itself being particularly great, more the fact that she’d had a couple of good friends and anything was better than the south side, but still.  It didn’t matter.  She could have been talking about the most ultimate shithole, a thousand times worse than their neighbourhood, but Mandy and Mickey’s always-scared and already-damaged child brains would still have started to associate that place with some strange kind of happiness they already suspected they’d never get.  So if Linda’s telling him he could move there, could not only get out of this life but could get to a place that he’d always kind of secretly dreamed of, if only because it was the only place anyone had ever told him was _worth_ a dream –

Mickey can’t think about any of this.  He shuts down his brain, listens to the kid babbling nonsense.  He can handle nonsense, he can handle the kid, and the simple set of rules and timetables she lives by.  The rest of the world, he’ll deal with later.

\--

He finishes counting out the register, locks up the store, and goes home.  And later, as he’s giving the kid her bottle, he thinks.  Has been trying to avoid it since they left the store, but kind of has to.

He thinks about his aunt, and how crazy a coincidence it is that Linda’s offering him a chance to move to the same city Rande had always waxed on about so much.  And how he doesn’t believe in fate or destiny or god or any shit like that, but does believe you should never pass up a good thing on the rare fucking occasion one gets thrown your way.  And he thinks about why he doesn’t want to leave, about how the south side is who he is and how he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to exist anywhere else, if he’ll be able to learn that whole new set of rules that comes along with getting out of their neighbourhood.

Then he thinks about the real reason he’s afraid.  About all the ghosts he sees here, and how he’s always wished, hoped, dreamed that one of them in particular will come back to him.  If Mickey leaves the south side –

If Mickey leaves the south side, and he can admit this to himself, he will also be leaving behind the hope that one day Ian Gallagher will come home and crash straight into his arms.

“What d’you think?” he asks the kid idly, looking down at her in his arms as she drinks her milk.  “D’you wanna grow up here?”

She doesn’t respond, and Mickey takes that as a _no,_ because the kid seems pretty wise already and nobody with an ounce of brain would want to grow up where he did.

“What about Ian?” he asks, quieter then, voice lower and rough with the disbelief that he’s actually saying this aloud.  “Is it worth sticking around ‘cus I kinda hope he’ll come home an’ want me again?”

She stares at him, eyes wide and unimpressed.

“Yeah, fuck, you’re right, I don’t really think that’s gonna happen.  Nice to dream, though, eh?”

He takes the now-empty bottle out of her mouth, waiting for her response.  She burps.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, throwing the bottle down onto the couch and rubbing the hand which had been holding it over his face.  “You want your fucking bath or not?”

How this kid has all the answers, he’ll never know.  Mickey’s still trying to figure out the questions.

\--

And so, a week later, they move.  There’s no fuss, no pomp and circumstance.  There’s only a few people he has to even tell he’s leaving.  Linda, of course, but since she’d set the whole thing up in the first place he figures that’s taken care of.  The less legal side of his income has dropped off almost completely since he’s had the kid, since he doesn’t exactly have babysitters in abundance so he can’t make much time for drug deals and kneecapping – still, he lets a couple of old business associates know he’s leaving town, just in case, but doesn’t say where he’s going.  Other than that, it’s only Svetlana.  She doesn’t seem upset about him leaving, but she makes him promise to keep the same cell number so she can text him if she wants to.  Mickey agrees; he likes their relationship, these days.  They don’t hang out much but she’s fun when they do, and sometimes it’s nice just being around someone who knows the whole story.  The whole Mickey fucking Milkovich picture.

He tells her she can move into the empty Milkovich house, when he leaves.  Iggy’ll be out of jail in six months but Mickey doubts he’ll care, and there’s no point leaving the house empty for that long anyway.  Plus, he doesn’t know where she’s been sleeping recently, and it’ll make him feel better to be sure she’s got a roof over her head.  A crappy, leaking roof singed from one too many meth lab explosions is still a roof, after all.

As far as the move itself goes - he doesn’t overthink it.  He looks online and makes a deal to rent a shithole apartment near Linda’s sister’s store.  Then he packs up the car with a couple of boxes of his clothes, a selection of weapons, their Xbox, all the food in the kitchen, some diapers, and all of the kid’s toys.  He sits her in her car seat, in the front with him, and she watches him curiously as he checks they’ve got everything, sucking on her pacifier with her usual intensity.

Then he gets into the car, and he drives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	6. Chapter 6

Their roadtrip takes two days, and by the time they arrive in Philadelphia, Mickey’s pretty much sick of the world.

It would have been half the time, but as it turns out, babies and long car journeys don’t really mix – looking after the kid has been impossible, and he’s always hated driving anyway.  He decides that as soon as they get to Philly, they’re staying there for _good_ and never getting back in this car ever again.  He’s gonna sell it for scrap, maybe say screw the money and set it on fire just to watch it burn.  He seriously, _seriously_ hates driving.

Still, they make it.  Neither of them permanently scarred, they make it, and two days of misery seems like the perfect send off for Chicago.  Mickey’s pissed after the trip, but at the same time, kind of happy.  A fresh start sounds pretty fucking fantastic, if he’s honest.

Linda’s given him the address of her sister’s store, but he doesn’t head there first.  Instead, he turns the car onto the street where their new apartment sits.

It’s a shitty little place, if the online description is correct, but it’s cheap and it has two bedrooms – though one of them is closet sized, but he figures the kid won’t mind – and it’s close to his new shitty job.  Really, it’s nothing to get excited about, except that it’s a symbol of something much bigger.  It’s a place that’s just gonna be _his,_ his and the kid’s, it’s a place that won’t hold ghosts, won’t have memories of his fucking father and his asshole brothers and certain redheaded exes.  Plus – well, it’s dumb, but he’s kind of proud of himself for even finding it.  It it’d just been him taking off on this great fucking adventure, he wouldn’t have bothered setting up a place to land, wouldn’t have thought twice about just taking off with no plans for his arrival.  He could’ve slept in his car ‘til he found a place, no big deal if that was weeks or months, it wouldn’t have bothered him.  But now he’s got the kid, he’s finding that he has to think for her, too.

He can’t exactly microwave formula or change diapers in the car.  They’ve barely survived two days in it, he knows they couldn’t have made it any longer.  So they need a place, with fucking running water and electricity and a couple basic kitchen appliances.  She needs a roof over her head, and apparently, he’s the one who’s gotta give it to her.  So.

He wonders, sometimes, if having her has made him a better person, or if it just seems that way because his life is so much more fucking complicated now.

Their new apartment is in a run-down looking building, but the street it’s on seems nice enough, quiet, mostly other apartment buildings but with a couple of stores as well – a Chinese takeout place, a dry cleaner’s.  Nothing fancy.  They’re on the second floor, and it doesn’t take long to haul their meagre possessions from the car to their new home, even taking into account the fact that Mickey refuses to leave the kid on her own, so has to take her along on every trip in and out.  She thinks it’s great fun – sits inside each box he carries, laughing to herself and messing around with their shit.

The place is small but clean, run down but light, and it seems fine enough.  It’s partly furnished because the last tenants had left some of their shit behind, according to the landlord – so Mickey has a bed, and there’s a stove and a fridge and a microwave in the kitchen, a couple of beat-up wooden chairs and a table, brightly coloured drapes on all the windows.  While the kid has fun crawling around and trying to get inside the empty kitchen cabinets, he sits on the floor surrounded by all their shit, drinks one of the warm beers he’d brought along, makes a mental list of everything they need to buy.  A couch, a crib, some shelves or shit like that, maybe a coffee table.  He’s got the TV from the old house.  They have clothes, enough food to last a week or so, all the kid’s toys.

Really, he thinks, feeling strangely proud of himself – this move was pretty fucking seamless.

It’s late autumn and getting colder every minute, so before they head outside, he bundles the kid up in this big dumb padded onesie that was a Linda hand-me-down.  He figures unpacking won’t take long, later, and he wants to meet his new boss, scope out the store he’s gonna be working at, see if it’s as similar to the Kash and Grab as he’d been promised.  He heads straight past the car still parked outside, though, decides to walk, carrying the kid on his hip.  Already, he can feel himself shedding the chains of Chicago, coming loose, he feels _free_ in a way that’s strange and almost scary.  He walks through the streets he doesn’t recognise and they’re nothing special, kinda grubby but maybe seeming safer than he’s used to back home, there’s not many people milling around but the few he spots don’t try to attack him or anything, and only one of them is drunk.  He thinks, maybe, he’s gonna like it here.  Takes a deep breath of the crisp air, feels the kid snuggling into his neck, her little hands gripping onto his coat, and thinks – yeah.  Okay.  He can see this working out.

The store is only a fifteen minute walk away.  It’s called the Grab and Save, but apart from the name, it looks fucking _identical_ to the Kash and Grab - at least from the street outside.  It’s actually kind of fucking spooky.  He stares for a long moment, blinks a couple of times and pinches himself before he goes in.  Where it seems pretty much the same too, the same size, basically the same layout except the cash register is at the other side, away from the door, the freezers taking its place.  There’s no Muslim shit around, either – he’s always figured Linda converted when he married Kash but never been sure about it, so he figures this confirms that.

“Um,” he says, because he’s the only one there except a woman at the counter and she has her head down, he can’t see her face.  “Hey.  I’m Mickey, Linda’s – friend?”

He says it hesitantly – now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t actually have a clue what Linda told her sister about him.  Or if this even _is_ Linda’s sister.  But apparently it is, because she looks up from the magazine she’d been buried in, and there’s recognition in her eyes.

“Oh, hi!” she says, actually sounds _cheerful_ which makes him suspicious that she’s actually related to Linda.  “Linds told me you’d be here today, but I didn’t think it’d be this soon!  I’m Julie, it’s nice to meet you!  _Aww_ , is this your daughter?”

She comes out from behind the counter and heads straight to the kid.

“Sure,” Mickey says, because he’s not quite sure how to respond to that question, doesn’t exactly want to go into the whole long, confusing tale.  Better to let people think she’s his, for the most part.

Julie is pulling faces at the kid – who in turn is laughing and babbling and showing off, in love with an audience as usual – so Mickey takes a moment to stare at her.  She doesn’t really look that much like Linda.  She’s young, kind of plain looking, with an open face covered in freckles.  Her hair’s dark, long and frizzy and uncovered, and Mickey wonders for a moment if that’s what Linda’s is like, too.  She’s not wearing any makeup, except mascara that’s smudged on her left eye, leaving a little black crescent of messiness on her cheek.  Maybe Julie doesn’t look like Linda because she’s actually smiling, looks fucking _happy_ to at least a small extent.

“So, um, I don’t know what Linda told you about me,” he says, though it comes out more like a question, when it’s become a little awkward to just stand around watching her giggling with the kid.

“Oh, right,” she says, seeming to jolt out of her little play world, standing back up to face him.  “Well, she didn’t tell me that much.  I guess she knows I can never resist a good sob story -” Mickey fucking hates being described that way, he immediately decides, but she doesn’t give him much chance to object, carrying straight on – “but really, the important things she  told me were that you’d been working at her store and you needed to get away from Chicago but she didn’t think you were gonna do it by yourself, and that you didn’t have any qualifications but that she’d recommend you anyway, and that you have an _adorable_ little girl who you bring to work with you, of course, and that if I hired you I would never have a single shoplifter ever again.  She only brought it up when I mentioned that the guy who worked here before had left, so I guess she knew I had an opening.  So I decided to take a chance on you!”

Mickey feels wholly and supremely awkward.  He doesn’t know how to respond to any of that shit, if he should challenge some of the things she’d said about him or just go along with it all because he’s fucking thankful for the job.  In the end he just kind of grunts, shifts the kid on his hip, thinks of something to change the subject to.

“This place looks a lot like the Kash and Grab, huh,” he points out, because the similarity really _is_ uncanny.

“Well, this was our parents’ store,” Julie says, heading back behind the counter.  “Me and Lin basically grew up at this counter.  When she moved away with Kash, I guess she missed it, because she basically forced him to open one just the same.  And then our dad died, and I got left with this place.”

She leans on the counter, looks kinda fond, which Mickey thinks is a pretty dumb thing to look about a shithole convenience store in a bad neighbourhood, but hey, to each their own.

“So, uh, you want me to start today or what?”

“Oh, no, I have things covered for today!  You can start on Monday – take the weekend to get set up.  I’m sure you need to unpack, get settled in the city.”

“Uh, sure,” he says, offering his best attempt at a smile.  “Thanks.”

“ _Ba ba ba,”_ says the kid, kicking her feet happily.  One of them catches him in the gut; he doesn’t even react, far too used to it after six months of carrying her around.  Then a particularly energetic kick sends one of her boots flying off her little foot.  Swearing at her under his breath, he plonks her down onto the ground and roots around under some shelves to retrieve it, shoves it back onto her foot as she sits on the ground and laughs like this is the funniest thing to ever happen.  A quick glance up shows that Julie seems to think it’s pretty funny, too.

Mickey scoops the kid up quickly after that and heads straight out the door, the kid babbling into his coat.

“Bye, cutie!” Julie calls after them.

Mickey really hopes she’s talking to the kid.

On the street outside Grab and Save, he tries to decide what to do next.  He should really go and hunt down some furniture that they need for the apartment, get all that sorted as soon as he can.  But he’s tired as shit and doesn’t really feel up to doing anything that involves so much _effort_.  He wants a cigarette but he’s still got this thing about smoking around the kid and he can’t really get around that when she’s balanced on his hip; he wants some fucking booze, something to relax him just a little and take an edge off the craziness of the day, but that, too, isn’t really an option when he’s parenting.

Directly across the street from the store is a shitty looking diner.  If he can’t smoke or drink, he decides to settle for some coffee.

A bell above the door tinkles when he enters, and he’s immediately hit with an overwhelming smell of greasy food. It’s the kind of smell that would probably sicken most people, but twenty years of his cheapness-orientated diet of crappy fast food means that all it does is make him hungry.  He takes a step towards the counter, already trying to decide if he should get something to eat while he’s here –

And then.

Stops dead.

In his fucking tracks.

There’s only one group of people in here, sat in a booth in the corner, chatting happily to each other and eating and laughing and generally acting like a pretty normal group of friends hanging out.

Two of those people are Ian and Mandy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	7. Chapter 7

Mickey’s first time with a guy, he’d been fifteen, and it was the most surprised he’d ever been.

He wasn’t _stupid._  He’d had sex with girls already, and he knew it didn’t do it for him the way it was supposed to, he knew he was something else.  When he watched porn he was only interested in the guys; sometimes he jerked off thinking about getting fucked in the ass.  Still, the first time that actually _did_ happen – he was fucking surprised, no other way to put it.

The lucky guy was a friend of Iggy’s.  TJ.  Some low level dealer, kind of a shithead but tame compared to most of Mickey’s relatives, and he didn’t mind Mickey hanging out with them even though Mickey was a few years younger, so he was okay.  One night the three of them had the Milkovich house to themselves, they were getting drunk and high on the couch and watching wrestling, and then Iggy passed out.  He’d done some coke and smoked a couple of joints before Mickey and TJ had even got there, had a head start on them.

They dragged him to his room and onto his bed, feeling pretty fucking charitable about it.  And then it was just Mickey, TJ, and the wrestling

Thing is.  Wrestling.  Lots of fucking hot guys mostly naked slamming each other about.

Mickey didn’t actually realise he was hard until TJ grabbed his cock.

After that, there wasn’t much time for talking.  They’d scrambled to Mickey’s room, too nervous of being caught to brave the living room even though nobody else was home, and once they were safely locked away it was just a frenzy of clothes being ripped off and limbs tangling together, and TJ had asked, “You a top or a bottom?” and Mickey had said _bottom_ before he even thought about it, before he even thought he should maybe mention he wasn’t really anything, he was kind of a virgin.  But that didn’t seem to matter, when TJ was pushing Mickey face down onto the bed, pulling his ass up into the air, roughly pressing in one lubed up finger.

Mickey’d thought about doing that to himself, before, when he was jerking off, but had always been too nervous.  He fucking regretted never trying it, though, as soon as he got his first taste; it was _heaven,_ it hurt but it was heaven, the burn radiating through him and turning to pleasure somewhere along the way.  TJ had shoved another finger in and Mickey pushed himself back onto it; then a third and the pain and pleasure were growing in tandem, and Mickey felt himself going fucking _wild,_ losing control by the second, every inch of his body pulsing with want.

When TJ had finally drawn out his fingers and pushed in with his dick instead, Mickey had to bite down on the pillow to keep from shouting out.  His dick was rock hard and pulsing, and TJ started frantically pounding in and out of him, and it hurt and it was fucking amazing and Mickey was so, so fucking turned on, he was more turned on than he had ever been in his life, and on every single one of TJ’s thrusts he was jolted forwards and his dick would rub against his stomach and it was fucking agony.  It had barely been thirty seconds when TJ had reached down and wrapped his hand around Mickey’s cock, started jerking it furiously, in time to his thrusts, and his hand was too dry and calloused and his dick was thumping into Mickey too hard and the room was oddly silent apart from their heavy panting and the strange slapping of TJ’s balls against Mickey’s ass and the creak of the bed as their rough pace rocked it back and forth.  And then Mickey had spread his knees apart a little wider, and it had changed the angle and suddenly, suddenly, TJ was hitting some kind of magic fucking button and Mickey’s whole body was setting on fire and he was coming harder than he’d ever come in his life, so hard his vision whited out for a moment.

TJ came the next moment, rolled off Mickey straight away, started getting dressed before Mickey’s vision had even fully returned.

“You tell anyone and you’re dead,” TJ had told him, just before he left the room.

“Back at ya,” Mickey’d replied, still on the bed, too fucked out to care about the threat.  TJ had paused for a moment before leaving.

“Gimme a call if you wanna hook up again,” he’d said, and then was gone.

 Mickey didn’t sleep that night.  He just lay there thinking about how truly, crazily surprised he was by the whole thing.  It had happened within the space of ten minutes.  He’d found out TJ was gay, he’d found out for fucking sure that _he_ was gay, he’d been fucked up the ass and come from it so hard it almost killed him.

All that had happened, and his main emotion was surprise.  He was pretty sure nothing would ever catch him that off guard again.

\-- 

Five years later, he’s looking at Ian and Mandy in a diner in Philadelphia, and he rethinks that statement.

The kid is squirming about in his arms, her little nails digging into his hands as she battles the awkward way he’s holding her, but Mickey can’t even notice.  All he can see is Ian and Mandy.  Ian and Mandy, side by side, sat in a booth in this shitty diner with three other people who are all talking loud and laughing and messing about, only Ian and Mandy have frozen.  They’ve spotted him.

He imagines what he must look like, the ghost from their pasts.  Not that different bar a couple of new tattoos, one on his arm where they can see it poking out of his t-shirt.  His t-shirt isn’t clean, just like it never was before, but now he’s covered in baby food and spit rather than blood and dirt.  Well - there’s still a little bit of dirt.  They’re probably most struck by the kid in his arms, her little pink overalls and combed-out curls seeming the stark opposite to everything about him, and the way he’s holding her like she’s _his._ Which, in a way, he guesses she kind of is.

For their part, Ian and Mandy look like he remembers them too.  Neither of them have any visible tattoos or babies.  Ian’s hair is longer than it had been the last time Mickey had seen him.

_Don’t.  Don’t what?  Just -_

It was short, then.  Now it’s a little longer.  He clearly isn’t still in the army.

The other people at Ian and Mandy’s table seem confused.  Ian and Mandy have stopped in the middle of conversation, are merely staring at him, and he knows he must make a relatively odd sight to the casual observer.  The other conversations at the table die down slowly, too, until everybody is just silent, and looking at him, and Mickey can’t speak think breathe, can’t – can’t _handle_ this.  Ian and Mandy.  His two – _people,_ the only two who had ever mattered, before the kid.  The two he’d been convinced he’d never fucking see again.

“Why is that guy staring at you?” one of the people at the table asks, in a low voice like he thinks Mickey won’t be able to hear him that way, even though the diner’s basically silent now.  “He looks - _dangerous,_ it’s freaking me out.”

“Should we leave?” one of the girls mutters straight after, not giving Ian or Mandy a chance to respond.  “I think we should leave - what if he’s gonna rob the place or something?”

That nearly makes Mickey laugh - he’s holding a fucking _baby,_ what do they think he’s gonna do?  He shifts the kid in his arms, cuddles her closer into his chest, and finally gets up the fucking guts to take the five steps over to their table.  He stands facing Ian and Mandy, and both their jaws are pretty much on the ground.

“What’s up, faggots?” he asks.  One of the girls at their table makes this little hurt noise in her throat.

“That’s offensive language!” she exclaims, her voice high-pitched and frightened.  “Please don’t talk like that!”

Mickey furrows his brow together.

“You _know_ these douchebags?” he asks Mandy, raising an eyebrow, and she pauses for a second.

Then she fucking _lunges_ across Ian towards Mickey, her fists hitting any parts of him she can reach, fucking growling as she scrambles out of the booth to stand up and get better access to slapping the back of his head.  He tries to dodge out of her way.

“Ey, ey, watch the fucking kid!” he cries, using his hands to shield her head from Mandy’s blows.  If she wasn’t in his arms he’d already have Mandy in a headlock and be twisting one of her nipples off by now, but hey, parenthood takes sacrifices.

Mandy, thankfully, pauses when he reminds her of the baby.  She takes a step back, ignoring her open-mouthed friends, and regards him with a frown.

“Yeah, what’s with that?” she asks, gesturing towards him.  “Thought Svetlana never had her baby?”

“She didn’t,” Mickey assures her, trying not to let his eyes drift to Ian when he says it, wondering if he knew that already.  “This one’s Tony’s, but, y’know, I kinda got stuck with her when he went to jail.”

“That was like, months ago,” Mandy points out.  “Are you trying to tell me you’ve been taking care of a baby for _months?”_

“About six,” Mickey says, shrugging.  He adjusts the kid in his arms when she starts to squirm, spinning her around again so she can face out and see who he’s talking to.  “It ain’t so bad.”

“Well fuck me, maybe you do have a heart.”

Mickey doesn’t really know how to respond to that.

“How’d you find me, anyway?” Mandy asks then, pausing for a moment and sitting back down.

“Whadd’ya mean how the fuck did I find you - I didn’t fucking try to!  You wouldn’t tell me where you fucking were!  I just wanted to get out of Chicago, and Linda set me up with a job here.  How the fuck was I supposed to know you’d be here?”

Mickey thinks Mandy’s all but forgotten about the other people she’s with, but Mickey sure as hell hasn’t.  He can feel their confusion and fear as they stare at him, eight laser-beam eyes burning into his side.  The only one who’s staring down at the table is the one Mickey thinks he’d maybe quite like to see.

“Mandy, who is this?” asks one girl, the other one, not the one who’d told him off for saying _faggot_.  She seems a little calmer than the others, but still confused as hell.  It seems to jolt Mandy out of her little bubble and remind her that she has _company._

“Guys, this is my fucking idiot brother, Mickey.”

He doesn’t totally appreciate the introduction, but it’s not entirely inaccurate.  He nods awkwardly in their direction.

There’s a few seconds of silence, while Mickey tries to think what to say.  He knows what he wants to say, who he wants to say it _to,_ but Ian’s still staring down at the table like nothing interesting at all is happening, and Mickey doesn’t know how to make the hole in his stomach close up before it lets out everything he’s built for the last two years - everything he’s tried to build around that feeling of _emptiness_ he’d had for so long after Ian fucking left.

He’s just opening his mouth to say something else to Mandy when Ian stands up.  All of a sudden in one harsh, strong movement.  He’s apparently finally stopped growing, because he’s not any taller than Mickey remembers him.

“I -” says Mickey, and Ian just walks straight past him, fast, crosses the room and leaves before Mickey can say a single fucking thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

He tells Mandy he has to go, in the awkward silence between them after Ian leaves, makes her promise to call him soon so they can meet up again and then lets her deal with her still terrified-looking friends.  He goes back to his apartment without the cup of coffee he’d gone in there for in the first place.

All day he just.  Works.  He fills out all the paperwork for their new life meticulously and unpacks their belongings one object at a time and he doesn’t.  Think.  About anything.  He reads a picture book with the kid, microwaves her some instant oatmeal for lunch and tries to get most of it in her mouth, eats his own slice of cold pizza while she draws on his jeans with a crayon.  He smokes nine cigarettes, leaning out of the window while the kid watches a DVD or sleeps in her carrier, and doesn’t think about why that’s five more than a usual day.

That night, after he’s put the kid to bed, he gets in the shower and jerks off so furiously he comes within seconds.  He doesn’t think about messy red hair or hard freckled bodies or too-soft lips stretched around his dick.  He doesn’t.

He goes to sleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.  He thinks it’s some kind of biological defence mechanism.  Even his body doesn’t want him to have to think about his day.

The next morning, he wakes up to the kid screaming for him, and there’s a blissful second where it’s just like any other day.

Then he remembers, and his whole fucking life is crazy again.

\--

After he feeds the kid some cereal and manages to get her amusing herself with her toys, he wishes he hadn’t been so organised the day before.  Now, there’s nothing to distract himself with.  Nothing really left that he needs to _do._  He’s almost tempted to go to the store and beg Julie to let him start work today, but it’s not like working in a grocery store is actually a very demanding task – realistically, he’d still have a lot of free time on his hands.

So he sits at the little brightly-painted kitchen table the last tenants had left behind, and he thinks.

And.  Just.  _Fuck._ Mandy, for one thing, Mandy is easier to think about, so he starts with her.  Mickey’s never really counted himself as close to his family, though he knows they often come off that way, and Mandy wasn’t really ever an exception to that.  They didn’t hang out, much, as teenagers – as kids they spent a lot of time together but it wasn’t necessarily out of choice, more because they were the youngest and usually weren’t allowed to go along on whatever their brothers were doing, had to be pawned off on a neighbour or aunt Rande or left in the house to their own devices.  But, still.  Mickey’s always loved Mandy, more than anything.  More than any of his family, anyway.  He’s always felt the need to protect her, though a lot of the time he couldn’t and that always killed him, but still.  He loves Mandy, but he doesn’t, when it comes down to it, know that much _about_ her, at least not these days.

And Mickey, he’s kind of had to be okay with that.  And he’s resigned himself a while back to the fact that he would probably never see Mandy again.  And so long as she kept on texting him once in a while, kept on letting him know she was okay and he didn’t have to worry, he could have been okay with that.

Except now, somehow, some _fucking_ how she’s here, she’s ended up back in the same place as him again, and he can all of a sudden feel how much he’s missed her.  Mickey’s never really been the kind of person who has friends, and Mandy was one of the few people he could ever hang out with and not want to kill someone.

The other person who falls into that category is –

Which brings him to the next part of his fucking breakdown, the other person he’d recognised at that table, it brings him to –

“Come on kid,” he says suddenly, looking over at the empty living space as an idea pops into his mind, something else to distract himself with, something else to fucking keep him from having to think about _that_. “Let’s go buy you some furniture.”

She throws her banana on the floor and squeaks. He takes it as her way of saying she’s excited.

Mickey heads out the door without any real idea of where they’re going, but he figures he’s got the luxury of time, today, so it doesn’t really matter. They wander around for a while, just getting to know the area they’ve somehow found themselves living in, but they actually only have to walk a few blocks before they stumble upon a big pawn shop which has a lot of ratty old second hand furniture piled up inside. _Jackpot_.

A bell rings over the door when they enter, and the kid squeaks in delight at the sound. Mickey looks around; they actually have a lot of stuff crammed into the tiny store, and he doesn’t have a fucking clue how he’s supposed to pick between it all.

He wanders around in there for a minute.  The only other person is a grumpy looking middle aged dude sat behind the counter, and he doesn’t fucking acknowledge Mickey at all, so Mickey assumes he’s free to roam.  He picks about through the furniture for a little while, no idea what he’s actually looking for beyond _couch, crib, shelves?_  But at one point, when they pass a squashy red couch with a couple of mysterious stains on the cushions, the kid starts wriggling in his arms.

“Ah, ba, da da!” she screeches, earning them a glare from grumpy counter guy, who Mickey just glares back at until he looks away.  Then, he eyes the kid contemplatively.  She’s still wriggling about, arms stretching away from him, hands grabbing at the air.

He drops her onto the red couch.  She giggles, and pats it with her hands.

So that’s that decided.

The furniture is handily kind of organised into sections, so he just wanders around to what they need and uses the kid as a divining rod.  There’s a surprisingly large amount of cribs in the pawn shop, and she tries to climb inside a blue one that’s patterned with astronauts, so that’s that decided.  He wants a coffee table, too, drops her in that general area and she pulls herself straight onto a long, low wooden one; perfect.  He’s about to call it quits then, but she crawls away again, makes her way over to a tall bookshelf, bangs her hands on the side of it.  Their place is small and they didn’t bring a lot of shit with them, but he figures they could still use some shelves, so he acquiesces, picks her up again and makes his way over to the counter, to pay for all the shit.

Then Mickey remembers his wow to never get back in his piece of shit hell car again.  He’s still got a couple hundred bucks left from the cash he’d managed to save up for the move, enough to more than cover the shitty furniture they’ve just picked out.

“Hey,” he says to the guy behind the desk, who responds with a grunt. “Do you guys deliver?”

Three hours later, he’s sat in his new apartment on his new couch, and the kid’s napping in her new crib, and his phone rings.  He looks at the name on the screen.

It’s Mandy.

Head swirling, he picks up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	9. Chapter 9

“So,” is the first thing Mandy says when Mickey answers the phone. 

“Yeah,” he replies.  There’s a few seconds of awkward silence, which is ridiculous because it’s _Mandy._  He half-heartedly kicks at one of the toys littering the floor.  “Fucking crazy or what?”

“ _Philadelphia?_ ”she responds.  “Really, Mickey?  Why here _,_ of all fucking places?”

“Like I said, Linda got me a job.  Her sister’s got a store here.  I figured getting out of Chicago wouldn’t be the worst thing.  Plus, y’know – well, you probably don’t actually remember, but when we were kids, aunt Rande used to talk about Philly a lot, said it was cool.  It seemed dumb to pass up a chance to move here, if it might actually be a place that’s kinda _lucky_ for our family.”

Another beat of silence.  Then –

“I remember,” she says, voice a little quieter now, a little softer.  “Didn’t think you would, though, I was the one who lived with her all that time.”

“Yeah, but I was there a fair fucking lot too.”

“I guess.  I mean – yeah, when me and – when me and Ian wanted to get away, he didn’t have a clue where he wanted to go, so I picked Philly.  Guess I thought the same thing you did – maybe it’s lucky, or something.  I know that’s dumb.”

“Fucking dumb,” he agrees with a snort, but he can’t ridicule it too much since it’s his own logic.  “So, what, think this is fate or some shit?”

“Fate doesn’t exist, moron, it’s a bullshit idea made up by people too piss-scared to take responsibility for their own lives,” she says, and _that’s_ the Mandy he knows.  “This is just weird.  Kinda nice, too, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he agrees.  “Kinda.”

In the short pause that follows, Mickey crosses to the window and lights up a cigarette.  Looks out over his new city as he flicks his cracked plastic lighter a couple of times to get the last drop of life out of it, reminds himself to buy a new one in the morning.

“So,” Mandy says next.  “You got a fucking _kid_ now?  What’s up with that?”

“I don’t even know.  I didn’t exactly fucking plan it – one day Tony turns up at my place, throws the kid at me, tells me he’ll be back the next day, doesn’t even give me a choice in the matter.  Next thing I know I’m getting a call that he’s in jail for three years, minimum, and he’s asking me to take care of her until he gets out or something.”

He takes a long drag of his cigarette, closing his eyes for a moment as the smoke fills up his lungs, makes him feel strangely whole in the moment before he blows it back out again in one long stream.

“And you didn’t just dump her into foster care?”

“Nah.  You’re fucking lucky, you were never in the system, but I remember what that shit’s like.  She’s better off with me.”

That’s the moment he wishes they were talking face to face, not just on the phone, because he wants to see her expression, wants to judge how she’s reacting, suddenly nervous that she thinks he shouldn’t have the kid, that she thinks he’s not fit for it, that she wants to take the kid herself or put her in the system, send her away somehow.  Mandy doesn’t know shit about his new life, and he doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s changed now, that the kid really _is_ better off with him.  He didn’t even want her, he _doesn’t_ even want her, at least that’s what he tells himself, but still – she’s better off.

“Okay,” is all she says, then changes the subject.  “Look, this is so fucking crazy.  Where are you living?  Gimme the address, I’ll come over later.  I work Saturday nights at the diner but my shift doesn’t start until ten, I can hang out for a bit before that.”

“Only if you’re bringing takeout,” Mickey says.

“Deal.”

He rattles off the apartment’s address, which he has newly memorised but also has scribbled on the back of an old envelope tucked into his wallet, just in case.  When he’s said it, Mandy makes a strange, high pitched squeak, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“You _fucker,”_ she says.  “Mick, we live on the same fucking _block.”_

The worlds of coincidences are getting a little too much for Mickey.  Their aunt never mentioned this street in particular.

“It was just the first fuckin’ apartment I could find,” he says, like that makes it less crazy.

She snorts, and then there’s a moment of silence.  Mickey’s heart is beating too loud in his chest and his stomach is flipping over and over so much that he feels like he might throw up, but he knows he has to ask before she hangs up and he loses his chance, knows he won’t say this in person when he sees her.  He doesn’t bother to take a deep breath before he speaks.  Knows it won’t help.

“Did - y’know, did _he_ fuckin’ say anything to you?  About seeing me?”

Another moment of silence.

“Um,” she says.  More silence.  Mickey really thinks he might be sick.  “I actually tried to talk to him, but he.  Um.  He wouldn’t talk about it, and – then he called his douchebag booty call guy, so they’re holed up in his room now.”

Mickey doesn’t care.  Doesn’t care.  Doesn’t have any fucking right or reason to care.  If the feeling that he might vomit is only getting worse, that’s no indication of his fucking _feelings_ on that matter.  Of which he has none.

“Okay,” he tells Mandy.  His voice sounds steady.  “Just, y’know, checking it didn’t make things weird for him, or whatever.  Doesn’t bother me.”

“Mick-” Mandy begins, but he knows that she’s always been able to see through his bullshit better even than he has, so he cuts her off.

“Look, I gotta go, the kid needs feeding, but come over later, yeah?”

He hangs up before she can answer.  Looks down at the kid, who’s sleeping peacefully in her crib, has never needed food _less_.

She has freckles on her dusty nose.  Sometimes they hurt his eyes to look at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

As usual when something genuinely crazy is going on in his life, Mickey doesn’t really notice the time passing.  He hardly remembers blinking but the clock flies past, and before he knows what’s going on, three weeks have passed since he moved to Philly.

In that time, he’s seen Mandy nearly every day.  His revelation that he’s missed her in their two years apart hasn’t gone unreciprocated, apparently, and though neither of them say it, they’re both glad to hang out again.  They play video games, which Mandy always wins – just like old times, though Mickey still keeps on demanding rematches.  They sit on the window sill and get high, when the kid’s asleep, joke around and tease each other about dumb shit, really just enjoying the company.  They watch the kid together, too, Mandy as it turns out is actually pretty good at amusing her – though she doesn’t seem totally comfortable with her sometimes, and Mickey wonders if the parenting thing will ever come naturally to either of them, or if Terry fucked them up bad enough for it to last a lifetime.  But still, Mandy’s good with her, plays dumb games, laughs when the kid calls a banana or sock or the microwave _da da_ because she doesn’t really know what _things_ are yet, says that she’s got about as much chance of ever seeing her actual Dada again as she does of that microwave procreating.  Which, yeah, is kinda true.

Mandy decorates his place a bit, too, buys junk to fill up his shelves, spoils the kid with second hand toys she finds at garage sales, so much so that the floor is littered with them and Mickey can’t go ten steps without accidentally treading on something, cursing Mandy every time he does.

They talk about the silly parts of their lives for the last two years, but they don’t talk about the serious shit, Mickey doesn’t ask about whether Mandy ever wants to finish school or whether the asshole boss she casually complains about harassing her has ever tried anything serious.  And she doesn’t ask about how he felt when she and Ian left, about how he feels about Ian _now,_ about whether he’s dated anyone, about whether he’s come out to anyone, about any shit to do with his love life, really.

They definitely don’t talk about the look on their father’s face when their joined hands pulled the trigger.

So over those few weeks Mickey sees Mandy a lot, but he doesn’t see Ian.

He tries to tell himself that’s no big deal.  Mandy is the only one with access to both of them and she doesn’t bring it up at all, so he figures it must be nothing, not even worth mentioning.  It’s been two years since they saw each other last, since Mickey said _don’t_ and it wasn’t enough because the rest of the words got stuck in his throat.  One year and eleven months since the army found out Ian wasn’t really Phillip and told him to never come back, if Mandy’s timeline is to be believed.  Also one year and eleven months since Mandy and Ian decided to get out together, leaving Mickey behind, choking in their dust.

It’s no big deal.

Mickey’s over it.  He’s fucked other guys since then – okay, one other guy, unless a drunken blowjob which he didn’t reciprocate in a back alley counts – and he’s done other stuff, he’s worked – a boring as fuck job he’s had for years, but work nonetheless – and hey, he’s got the fucking kid now.  The last thing he needs is Ian Gallagher.  He’s _over_ it.

He tells himself that on repeat, as the weeks pass and he sees Mandy, Mandy, Mandy, no Ian.

On the last day of his third week at Philly, he gets off work early.  It’s been a slow day, even the kid being calm and no hassle for a change, and he’s kind of bored as fuck.  As fun as going home and doing _nothing_ the whole night sounds, he decides to make some different plans.  As the kid crawls around in the snow outside the store, refusing to let him pick her up and take her home, he gets out his phone and calls Mandy.

“Asswipe,” she answers, charmingly.  She must have caller ID.  “What do you want?”

“Wanna hang out or some shit?” he asks, one eye on the kid, quickly swooping down and scooping her up with one arm when she heads for the edge of the curb.  She’s wriggling and protesting, banging her tiny little fists against his chest, and it takes him a moment to register Mandy’s answer.

“Sure, why not,” she’s saying.  “It’s cold as shit, though, I don’t wanna go out, why don’t you come over here.”

He pauses for a second.  Gives into the kid and lets her back down onto the ground, keeping a closer eye on her this time, as he tries to think what to say to Mandy.

“Uh, that okay?” he asks, doesn’t clarify why it wouldn’t be but she can probably figure it out.

“He’s not even here,” she replies, and he can practically hear her rolling her eyes.  He appreciates that she didn’t use any names, though.

“Okay,” he says.  “Give me the address.”

And then the kid’s heading towards traffic again, giggling like a lunatic, and he has to grab her before she can make it to the edge of the curb.

\--

Twenty minutes later, he and the kid are sat on Mandy’s living room floor.

She lives in some huge high rise apartment building, like he does now, only her place is a hell of a lot bigger, and nicer.  The living room and kitchen are huge and open-plan, and they’ve got fucking wooden floorboards, a giant-ass window that looks out over the city.  It’s got a shitload of bedrooms, too, which he figures explains the three roommates she and Ian share with.  In the quick glance he gets of her room during her half-assed tour, he gathers that she and Ian have the shit, small bedrooms, the ones which weren’t actually intended to be bedrooms but dining rooms or offices or some shit like that, in exchange for paying less rent than the others.  He thinks that’s a pretty sweet fucking deal.

He’s never thought of Mandy as particularly maternal, still doesn’t really, but even after just a few times meeting the kid, the two of them seem to get on great.  The kid’s even making attempts at saying Mandy’s name – calling out “ _Mah-eey, Mah-eey_ ” whenever Mandy does something a one year old would deem cool, like pulling a funny face or making fart sounds.  Mickey finds it kind of hilarious.  Also pretty fucking relaxing – when he and Mandy hang out now, it’s kind of more like she’s babysitting, and it gives him a chance to take his eyes off the kid for two seconds without worrying she’s gonna electrocute herself or smash her head open.  Mandy seems pretty happy to hang out with Mickey without actually hanging out with _Mickey,_ so he decides it’s good for everybody, and lets himself enjoy it.

On this particular occasion, she’s playing _bedtime_ with the kid – a game which involves putting all of her toys under a blanket, making exaggerated snoring sounds for a little while, then taking them all out and starting again.  Mickey usually gets bored after about three rounds of this, but the kid finds it fucking _hilarious,_ giggling and clapping and rolling about with excitement every time.

“Does mommy gonk want to go to bed, too?” Mandy’s asking, nodding seriously when the kid yells _da da_ and throws the toy under the blanket.  “Yeah?  How about teddy, does she want to go to bed? Yeah, ooh –”

“I need a beer,” Mickey says, mostly to himself, rolling his eyes.  Turns out he has even less patience for this game when he’s watching as opposed to playing.  He stands up and heads over to raid Mandy’s fridge.

Even though the kitchen and living room are technically in the same space, the kitchen is a hell of a lot brighter.  It’s got some fucking industrial looking light fixture shining neon down onto the little square that’s separated from the rest of the space only by a counter, and Mickey squints against it as he pulls their fridge open, grabs the first bottle of beer he sees nestled amongst the old takeout boxes and bruised fruit and cupcakes covered in post it notes which say _DO NOT EAT, PROPERTY OF EMMA MERCER_.

He’s just trying to decide whether he should take a cupcake too, just for the hell of it, when the front door swings open.

The front door, which happens to open right next to where Mickey is standing.

The person who walks through is Ian.

\--

He’s texting as he walks, but he stops as soon as he catches a glimpse of Mickey, his thumb freezing on the keypad, his jaw going slack.  He doesn’t move, and neither does Mickey.  They just stand there, and stare at each other.

Mickey’s heart – Mickey’s heart is fucking _racing,_ he hasn’t known the true meaning of that phrase until this second because it feels like he’s gonna take off it’s beating so fast, feels like he’s gonna explode or throw up or cry or fucking _something_ that ain’t gonna be pretty.  Because – it’s Ian, it’s fucking _Ian_ after all this time, and what Mickey felt for Ian never was pretty.  It was something else entirely, something Mickey’s never been able to put a name to, something that was a hell of a lot more important than anything else in his whole fucking life.  Two years, since he saw Ian, except that silent day in the diner where they hadn’t stood close, where Mickey hadn’t gotten a good look.

Now, they’re stood close, too close because Ian hadn’t seen him before it was too late, they’re stood only a foot apart and Mickey doesn’t know what to do.  He can see Ian’s faded freckles, the way a piece of his now-longer hair falls over his eyes, the way his t-shirt is tucked into the waistband of his jeans on the right hand side, the small faded scratch mark on the back of his hand.

Mickey glances towards the living room.  Mandy’s staring at them, but as soon as she meets his eye her head snaps back down towards the kid, she starts making exaggerated ticking motions and pointedly not looking at them.  So Mickey looks back at Ian.  Ian, who’s not looking straight at him, staring at a point somewhere to the left of Mickey’s head with his jaw set, but who is, still, standing there.

“So, hi,” says Mickey, thumbing at his lip.  They’re close enough for Mickey to smell the cigarette smoke on Ian’s clothes, the faint scent of his minty bodywash – the same kind he always used to use, Mickey knows that scent so fucking well. 

“Really?” says Ian, snorting and finally looking directly at Mickey.  “Two fucking years, all you’re gonna say is _hi?”_

Mickey shrugs awkwardly.

“The fuck you want me to say, man?”

“Just – _something,_ Jesus fucking Christ, say _something_ to give me the faintest clue what’s going on in your head, Mickey.”

Ian looks the same.  He looks the same, it’s been two fucking years, and the freckles on his nose are faint but Mickey can still see them, and his hair is a bright hot scramble half hidden by a beanie, and his cheeks are bitten red by the stinging cold air outside, and his lips look so fucking good just like they always did before, and his eyes are miles deep and staring straight at Mickey, and Mickey feels like he’ll get sucked straight into them if he looks too long.  It’s been two years, and Ian looks the same, but Mickey doesn’t _feel_ the same.

“I’m sorry,” he says.  Because it’s been two fucking years and he can _say_ this now.  “Just – fuck, everything that went down with us before, it’s so fucking crazy that we’re both here now and I never would’ve thought it’d happen so it seems stupid not to say it when it’s all I’ve been wanting to say.  I’m sorry, man, about all that shit.  None of it was right on you.”

Ian looks so fucking shocked it might actually be priceless.

“Hey, I’m sorry, too,” he says, after a long moment’s pause.  “I guess two years can get you some perspective, ‘cus, uh, I’ve sort of figured out since then that running away wasn’t the right thing to do, and I guess I blamed you for a lot of shit that wasn’t your fault, really, at the time, and there was other stuff going on with me that made it worse, so – sorry, yeah.”

Mickey nods, not sure how to respond, glances around again at Mandy who is still pointedly looking away from them.  He pulls in a deep breath, then raises his beer bottle and gestures towards Ian with it.

“Well, I should get back to the kid,” he says.  “It’s, uh, good seeing you, man.”

“Yeah,” says Ian.  “You too.”

Then he disappears into his room, and Mickey goes back to Mandy and the kid.

She doesn’t talk, for one long minute, just stares at him as he sits on the couch, sips his beer, tries to act like it’s all no fucking big deal.  Then, all of a sudden, she shoves a pacifier and a doll at the kid, and comes to sit next to Mickey on the couch.  He raises his eyebrows, waits for her to say something – watches as she glances at Ian’s closed door before opening her mouth.

“It’s really not my story to tell,” she starts, which fucking worries him right off the bat.  “But it’s crazy that you don’t know, and I just feel like you should.  If you’re gonna be - y’know, here, now.  If we’re gonna be seeing you a lot.”

“Huh?” he asks, thoroughly confused.  She stays silent for a few moments, gnaws on her lip, looks shifty as fuck, eyes darting around the room like she’s trying to decide what to do.

“He really doesn’t want anyone to know, I shouldn’t tell you,” she continues, after a while, seems more like she’s talking to herself than to Mickey.  “He didn’t even tell me until a few months after we moved out here.  I found him taking his pills, before we went out one night, thought it was MDMA or some shit, asked him to share.  That’s when he fessed up.  He’d just been dealing with it by himself, all that time.”

“What the fuck _is it_ , Mandy,” Mickey asks, by now starting to worry - Mandy hasn’t said a name, but there’s only one person she could be talking about, and it sounds like she’s gonna say something bad.  Mandy pauses for one more long moment, looks at him, rests her hand on his knee in a way that’s probably supposed to be comforting but really just makes Mickey feel like Ian’s his wife and Mandy’s a doctor about to tell him Ian’s got something terminal.

“He’s bipolar, Mick.”

And that word – that word doesn’t mean anything to Mickey, he’s not a fucking scientist or a fucking doctor, he’s never really heard of that before, and he wouldn’t know what to think except that the look in Mandy’s eyes is telling him it all, is telling him it’s bad.

“What –” he asks, has to stop and clear his throat, wade through the fog of worry in his head.  “What that fuck’s that?”

“Manic depressive, Mick.  Y’know, like his mom has, he goes from like, full of energy and mad ideas and seeming like the happiest guy in the world, then to so depressed he can’t even get out of bed, over and over again.  It’s okay when he’s on his meds, an’ he has been, like, the whole time we’ve been up here, least as far as I know.  He seems okay, he’s dealing with it, but it’s – well, I dunno, I still thought you should know.”

Mickey swallows around the lump in his throat, scratches his chest, leaves his hand there.  Right above his heart.  Ready to catch it when it finally does leap clean out of him like he feels it’s gonna.

“When did it start?” he asks.  Mandy shoots another look at the closed door of Ian’s bedroom, then faces back to Mickey.

“Far as I know, just before he left for the army, but he didn’t get diagnosed and medicated until after he came home, just before we moved here.”

And then – Mickey thinks about things that happened two years ago which made Ian depressed, which would have made Ian go fucking crazy, thinks of his foot connecting with Ian’s jaw, thinks of his hand wrapped around Svetlana’s at the altar, thinks of Terry and death threats and babies that never really existed, and he feels like he can’t breathe.

“Is it my fault?” he asks, voice cracking, can’t get out any more explanation that that but Mandy seems to get it, her face soft and sad, her hand gripping his knee tighter.

“No, Mick, that’s not how it works,” she assures him quietly, leaning in a little closer, putting her other hand on his shoulder, resting her chin on it, pressing herself up against him in a way she hasn’t since they were kids, a way Mickey is so fucking grateful for right then, because he’s shaking and having Mandy there makes it a little less awful.  “Y’know, it’s genetic, he got it from his mom, it would have started sooner or later no matter what happened.”

That barely makes Mickey feel better, but it does, maybe, just a fraction.  He takes a deep, shuddering breath, tries not to think about the fact that his head is _swirling,_ tries to think about where the fuck to go from here.  He and Ian aren’t even fucking _together_ or anything close, haven’t talked for two years, he doesn’t have any right to be this concerned, this upset, but – _fuck._ It’s _Ian._

“And – and he’s doing okay?” he checks.  “His meds, he’s taking them all the time, and they keep him – normal, like he used to be?”

“Yeah,” she says, her voice soft against his neck.  “I mean, he takes them, and they help balance him.  He’s – he’s not totally the same, always.  He still has highs and lows, but they’re not as bad, y’know, they’re manageable, they don’t stop his life, they’re not _dangerous_ like they would be if he was off the meds.  And he’s still Ian.  I mean, we’re all different than we were two years ago, right?”

It takes him a moment, but Mickey nods, eventually.  He’s definitely different, no doubt about that.  Mandy’s different too, from what he’s seen, she’s – happier, a little lighter, less defensive than she used to be.  Getting away from Chicago can apparently only be a good thing.  So okay.  Ian’s different, now.  Mickey can understand that.

He tries to think of something else to say to Mandy, after that, but he can’t.  His head is so full of thinking about Ian, of trying _not_ to think about Ian, of telling himself he doesn’t have any right to think about Ian, of wondering what the fuck is going _on_ with Ian, of wanting to know everything about Ian’s fucking _bipolar,_ of wanting to know better what that is, how it works, how bad it is.  There’s no space in his head for thinking up conversations to have with Mandy.

Luckily, there’s space outside of his head for her to curl around him, her chin still resting on his shoulder, her body keeping him steady, and she seems content to sit in silence, for a while.

And so that’s how they sit, until he realises he needs to get the kid to bed, says goodbye to Mandy, goes home.

He can’t figure out how he feels.  In a way, just knowing all this is a weight off his chest, having spoken to Ian, knowing what’s going _on_ with Ian.  In another way, everything is still just as confusing and shit as it was before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	11. Chapter 11

It’s only his second time over at Mandy’s place that one of her roommates butts in.

It’s the girl he doesn’t like, Emma, the one who pulls a face every time he swears and looks at the kid with something like pity in her eyes, like she thinks he’s screwing her up.  He doesn’t really have much to say about that, tries to ignore her when he can, but still.  He’s over at Mandy’s place, just to see her, and it turns out all her fucking roommates are there.  Emma the annoying chick, Cassie the quiet chick, David the guy who Mickey knows nothing about.  Plus – Ian.  Who’s kinda sat in the corner on his laptop and Mickey’s not looking at him, not looking at him, not looking at him.

And Emma, she doesn’t ever say much to Mickey, at least not in the admittedly few times he’s met her.  But still, she seems to like the kid well enough, in that casual sort of way most people like babies.  So when Mickey’s sat on Mandy’s couch, drinking a beer with her, and the kid is sat on his lap playing with his phone intently, Emma leans over and starts fucking _cooing_ at her.

“Oh, I never asked,” she says, suddenly, posh fucking accent affecting an air of shock.  “What’s her name?”

And Mickey.  Um.  Kind of pauses.

“Shit, yeah!” Mandy says, snapping her head to look at him like it’s all his fucking fault.  “I never even _asked_ that, you always just call her _the kid_.”

“She,” he says, pauses, thumbs at his lip.  “I, uh, don’t really know.  Tony never mentioned it, the ten fucking seconds he actually talked to me about her.”

A beat of silence.  The other two roommates are inching over, looking ready to jump into the conversation.  Out of the corner of his eye, Mickey sees Ian’s head look up from his laptop.

Mandy thumps his arm so hard he can feel the bruise forming.

“You _shithead,”_ she says, and Emma _tsks_ under her breath, but doesn’t say anything.

“A child needs a _name,”_ says the other girl, Cassie, the quiet one, and there’s a crease forming between her eyebrows, she looks fucking _upset_ for the kid.  
  
“She’s _got_ one,” he points out.  “I just don’t fucking happen to know what it is.  Tony probably doesn’t even know either, the piece of shit, even if I did have a way to get hold of him we probably still couldn’t figure it out.”

“Well, then, you need to _give_ her one,” says Emma.  “She at least needs to have _something_ of her own.”

That seems like a dig at him and his parenting, and he cracks his knuckles angrily, but the kid’s still sat on his lap so he can’t exactly start anything.

“She’s fine,” he says instead, deviating from his usual tactics and using his words instead.  “She doesn’t need some random ass name, okay, she’s _fine.”_

“They’re right, Mick.”

And that – that’s a voice he knows all the fuck too well, or at least he used to.

He doesn’t turn his head, but he lets his eyes flick to the side, and Ian’s sat at the counter with his laptop but his whole body is turned to face Mickey, and Mickey can _see_ him, and Ian’s looking straight _fucking_ at him and he’s there, and he’s speaking, and he’s –

“Just choose a fucking name,” Mandy’s saying, and Mickey can’t say it but just hearing that Ian agreed with them was enough to fucking convince him in a second, and it’s so fucking sad that after all this time he’s still hanging onto Ian Gallagher.  But it’s the truth.  Anything Ian fucking wants, he always has a habit of getting, when it comes to Mickey.

“Fuck off,” he tells them all, for the sake of appearances.  But still, he packs up the kid’s stuff and takes her back to their apartment, and when he’s there, he _thinks._

And then, yeah, she’s crying and she needs feeding and she needs a bath and it’s a whole long messy experience, just like it is every night, so he doesn’t have time to think again for a while.  But when she’s finally down, snoring in her lopsided crib, he goes out to the couch and fires up the shitty old laptop.

He googles _how to name a baby._

The results lead him to a bunch of stupid mommy-blogs, sites with huge long lists of fucking names, you can search by length or meaning or country of origin, and it’s fucking _confusing_ and overwhelming as shit.  Mickey doesn’t feel one way or the other about names.  He’s hardly been scoping out what he was ever gonna call a kid, seeing as how he’d never counted on _having_ any.  He doesn’t give a shit what she’s called, but apparently, he has to fucking choose it.  That’s too much responsibility for him.

What if he picks something dumb?

He remembers the first time she said _dada._ He’d been in the kitchen, swearing at the pot of applesauce he’d just dropped on the counter, trying to scoop the contents back into it without making too much of a mess, and he’d heard her babbling in the living room, as usual.  Then, all of a sudden, she’d called it out.  _Dada!_  He’d frozen, panicked, thought for a second _fuck Tony’s back_ and then for another, longer, even more scary moment, _fuck she thinks I’m her fucking_ dad _._ He’d skidded into the living room to see what was happening, only to find that she wasn’t talking to him at all, but to her teddy bear.  Was just babbling, still, no fucking idea of the sounds she was making.  No fucking idea what a dada even was. 

Point being, names are stupid and meaningless and Mickey doesn’t know why the fuck the world makes such a big deal out of them.  Point being – he doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to fucking _pick_ one, some dumb collection of syllables that will influence the rest of the kid’s life.

For a few minutes he idly searches for any names with cuss words embedded in them, but gives up on that pretty quickly.  He shuts down all the tabs he’s opened, heads back to his google search, and, like the desperate man he is, goes to the second page of results.

It’s more of the same, really, but still, he trawls through it all

And there’s this – there’s this one, this fucking article.  Which isn’t just a list of names, which isn’t just talking about what season your kid was born in or which film star you want to bang.  There’s this stupid fucking article which puts this stupid fucking idea in his head –

It kinda tells him that lots of people name their babies after someone who used to be important to them.  A dead relative, is what it says.  Grandparents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers.  And shit, he’s got plenty of those.

It also says _mom,_ and from there comes the stupid, stupid fucking idea.

\--

The next day, he’s back at Mandy’s place in the middle of the morning, because he was bored.  All her roommates are there, again, lounging around doing whatever shit they do.  Ian’s on the couch, and he’s in pajamas, and Mickey’s not looking at him, not looking at him.  He sits at the kitchen counter with Mandy, and battles with the kid and some oatmeal.  Mandy’s eating yogurt and babbling, telling him some story, but then she finishes it and there’s silence and he decides he might as well fucking speak.

“Oh, by the way, since you were all fucking going on about it,” he announces to the room without looking up, like it’s no big deal.  “We’re, uh, gonna call her Melly.  Melania for proper, but y’know, Melly for short.”

Mandy goes still when he says it.  Looks at him, but he won’t meet her eyes.

She slams her spoon down on the table, leaves her half eaten yogurt, stamps to her room without saying a word.

She never did like being reminded of their mom.

The roommates don’t seem to mind her outburst, instead focus on Mickey.  Annoying Emma is laughing.  He can’t fucking figure out why, until she spells it out.

“You guys really like your alliteration, huh?” she says, and the other girl starts to laugh, too.  “Mandy, Mickey and Melly Milkovich?  Kind of a mouthful, right?”

“Fuck off,” he says, scowling at her.  He hadn’t actually thought of that, but it doesn’t matter.  The kid already seems to fit too well into her name, he can’t change it now, it’s been less than a fucking day but he already likes his choice, likes having this little not-quite-reminder of his mom around.

He thinks she’d shut up if he told her it was for his and Mandy’s mom, but he doesn’t really feel like talking about it, so he lets her laugh.  Lets them think he’s just bad at naming, that he really fucking likes the letter M, fine, whatever, it doesn’t matter to him.  It doesn’t matter what they think about _him._

Mandy doesn’t seem to be coming back out of her room, and when he realises that, it’s suddenly too awkward to be there.  So he finishes feeding the kid – feeding _Melly_ her oatmeal, and then he packs up her shit.  And then –

And then, Mickey doesn’t understand his life, doesn’t understand if it’s good or bad or something the fuck else altogether.  Because then, just when he’s about to leave, Ian corners him.  He says, “Melly, huh?”, and gives Mickey this soft look. 

Because sometimes, a few times, when he was drunk or high or freshly fucked, Mickey’d mentioned his mom to Ian in the past.  In that hazy, reminiscent sort of way.  She was never perfect, but she’d loved him, and no matter how high she got that never changed.  When she overdosed and left them with Terry, it was the worst thing that ever happened to Mickey.  He always thought his mom was one of the good ones - shipped off to America by her family at age thirteen with no idea what awaited her, she’d married Terry at only eighteen, and it had ruined her.  But she’d never been cruel, and she’d loved him and Mandy and all their shithead brothers, and he thinks that’s enough of an achievement in itself.  And he thinks it’s kind of dumb to name his kid after someone who’s dead, maybe, but his mom had always been _Melania_ and never had any nicknames, so he figures maybe he can get away with Melly.  It’s like having a kind-of-reminder of his mom, but not completely.  Enough for it to mean something, but not enough to mean _everything._

Ian seems to get it.  He doesn’t glare like Mandy does as soon as Mickey mentions the name _Melania,_ just comes over and asks that question that’s not a question - “Melly, huh?”

Mickey stares at Ian’s jaw in response.  He never did like making eye contact.

“Yeah,” he says, finally, when it becomes clear Ian’s not gonna say anything else.

“It’s a nice name,” says Ian.  There’s a second of silence, and Mickey can _see_ a war going on behind Ian’s eyes, wonders what it’s about until he realises, because Ian reaches over, and puts his hand on Mickey’s arm.

Mickey’s glad he’s wearing a coat.  Mickey wishes he wasn’t wearing a coat.  He wonders what the touch of Ian’s skin against his would do, after all this time.  If he’d fall to the ground, if it would knock him out, if it would be as fucking much as Mickey suspects.  If it would be _too_ much.  Ian’s always been too much, really, but in a crazy fucking way, a way that makes Mickey only want more.

Ian’s touching his arm, and Mickey shuts his eyes for one long second, because his whole body feels on edge, because every one of his nerves is lighting on fire and his stomach is flipping and his heart is racing and his throat feels tight.  He can’t look into Ian’s open face, can’t stare at him, because he knows he’ll just see those faint freckles and those green eyes and that dumb bright red hair and he’ll fall all over again, and this time, he won’t have anything to land on.

“Yeah,” he says, and his voice sounds choked but he doesn’t care.  “Thanks, man.”

Ian pulls his hand back, nods.  Mickey hugs Melly to his chest tighter than he should, and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	12. Chapter 12

Melly’s grasp of the English language is pathetic at best, non-existent at worst, but despite that she somehow never has any problem getting her point across.  So when they’ve kept to themselves for a couple of weeks and she starts throwing tantrums, smashing her toys on the ground and babbling, “Mah-dee, Mah-dee”, he knows what she’s asking.  Holds out for maybe two days before he decides to swing by Mandy’s place on his way home from work.  If it’ll shut Melly up, it’s worth braving awkwardness with her roommates.

Besides, having no human interaction besides a one year old and the occasional conversation with his boss – well, it’s probably not doing him any favours.  His sister is better than no-one.

He knocks on the door, polite fucker that he is, and because his life is a joke he really _shouldn’t_ be surprised when it’s Ian who answers.  Somehow he still is, though, wasn’t expecting that.  Ian’s hair is curling just a little bit around his temples, and he’s wearing sweatpants and a too-big ratty blue t-shirt, and his feet are bare, toes curling into the cold wooden floor, and he’s holding a poptart halfway to his mouth, frozen with surprise of Mickey being the one to knock on his door.

“Um,” says Mickey.

“Dah da da!” says Melly, throwing her hands out to Ian with delight.  For a moment he thinks she’s reaching for the poptart, but instead, her little fingers latch onto his t-shirt, and she grins.  She hasn’t even properly met Ian yet, and she’s already in love with him – of fucking course.

“Come in?” says Ian, and gently pries Melly’s fingers away, stands out of the way of the door so they can pass.  Mickey shuts the door behind him, then just stands there and watches awkwardly as Ian heads towards the fridge.

“Want a beer?” he asks Mickey over his shoulder.  Mickey swallows oddly, thumbs at his lip.

“Can you – drink?” he asks, before he can think not to.  “On your meds and shit?”

Ian stops moving, his hand on the fridge handle, the door of it open just a slither.  His back is to Mickey, his face hidden.  He’s not shaking or fidgeting, is perfectly still.

“Mandy told you about that, huh?” he says, his voice casual in that way Mickey fucking _knows_ means he’s feeling the exact opposite.

“Yeah,” Mickey says, no point in denying it now.  “She mentioned.  I kinda looked it up after, though, thought it said something about no alcohol, it messes with the pills?”

Ian’s frozen for one more long second, then shuts the fridge and spins back around to face Mickey, eyes him kinda warily but otherwise expressionless.

“I’m off the hard stuff,” he says, his eyes never leaving Mickey’s.  “Makes me kinda loopy, but I can still have beer.  Just not too much or I get piss drunk.  All the pills do is make me a lightweight.”

Mickey cracks a smile at that, only half to make Ian feel better, and the strange awkwardness dissipates at least a little.

“I’m gonna say no to drinking, anyway,” Mickey decides.  “Uh, we were bored, actually just came by to see Mandy.”

He thinks it’s probably obvious that he didn’t come by to talk to Ian about the side effects of the medication Mickey shouldn’t even know he’s on, but still.  Ian’s silent for a moment, just staring at them, something like contemplation in his eyes.  Then –

“Not in,” he says, sounding casual.

“Oh,” says Mickey.  The door’s closed behind him; he wishes he’d left it open so he could just slink back out without it seeming like a big fucking performance.  “Okay, we’ll, uh, go then.”

“You don’t have to go,” Ian says, quickly, before Mickey can even finish turning towards the door.  Mickey freezes for a moment, then stares at Ian, doesn’t know what he’s expecting but knows that whatever it is will be too good to be true, as things with Ian Gallagher usually are.

“Why, she gonna be back soon?”

“Probably not,” Ian replies.  “But I’m not busy, we could hang out.  If you want.”

“Yeah, I want,” says Mickey before he even thinks about it, and then he _stops_ and thinks about it, and just. Holy fuck. Holy _fucking_ fuck.  What is happening what is going on is it three years ago is this a parallel universe where things don’t always totally _suck,_ he has no fucking clue but he prays that whatever the fuck it is continues.

“We could watch a movie,” Ian suggests, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for them to do that.

“Uh, the kid.  You got anything that won’t totally scar her for life?”

Ian laughs a little, shakes his head, heads over to the TV.  Mickey follows without being told to, like Ian’s the fucking pied piper or some shit, but Melly seems to want to follow him too so if anyone asks, that’s Mickey’s excuse.

When they’re over there, Mickey sees that Ian is pulling DVDs off a shelf, maybe eight or nine of them; they’re all just blank white cases, the kind you use for disks you burn yourself, but they have titles scrawled on them in bright green marker pen.  He recognises most of the titles; they’re all Disney films or other animated shit.

“As soon as she found out about the baby,” Ian explains, “Mandy went out and bought a bunch of shitty bootlegs of old kids’ movies.”

Considering Mickey and Mandy weren’t even really speaking at that stage, Mickey finds that oddly sweet.

“Wasted fucking effort,” is what he says instead of admitting that.  “The kid’s too young to even know what the fuck she’s watching yet.  She finds wrapping paper more fun than a fucking movie.”

They put Lady and the Tramp in anyway.

“You know, now that you’ve picked her name, you should probably start _using_ it,” Ian says, a few minutes into the film.  Mickey looks over at him, confused, and Ian clarifies; “Just then, you called her ‘the kid’ again.”

“Oh,” Mickey says.  “Yeah, fuck.  Guess I’m having a hard time gettin’ used to calling her Melly.”

“You’re gonna have to get used to it soon or she’ll end up with a fucking complex,” Ian says, grinning in a way that means he’s not really joking, but kind of.  Mickey hates that he knows so well what that grin means.  Hates that he remembers the days it was commonly directed at him.

So he doesn’t respond, and pretends to be interested in the stupid movie. 

Mickey’s seen this film before, when he was a kid, aunt Rande used to put on shitty Disney films when him and Mandy were over at her place so that she could go and smoke pot in the kitchen without them hassling her, but it’s not really like he remembers it.  So when it gets to the scene with the fucking spaghetti, he’s surprised, had totally forgotten this existed.

The two dumb cartoon dogs start sucking up that one long piece of spaghetti, and Mickey knows what’s gonna happen before it happens because he’s seen this before, but their lips meet in the middle.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ian turn his head, stare at him.  Mickey looks over at Ian, too, but then away again quickly because looking at him is like looking at the fucking _sun,_ bites his lip to keep from saying anything dumb.  The dogs are kissing on the screen and Ian’s staring at Mickey, and then he laughs, a strange bright small laugh, and Mickey feels his face heat up.

“Shut the fuck up,” Mickey says, eyes trained on the screen even though he can’t see a fucking thing that’s happening, can only see Ian.  He knows what Ian’s thinking, knows he’s thinking the same thing and that Ian must know that, too, but neither of them say it, so it’s okay, it’s like it’s not really happening.

The world is fucking crazy and Mickey is watching a kids’ film with Ian Gallagher and Melly is squirming about on his knee, and he doesn’t quite know how to react to anything, he doesn’t know where his head is anymore.  So he just pretends he cares what the fuck is on the screen, and after a minute, he sees Ian turn back to watching it, too.

About halfway through the film, Melly falls asleep.  He’s not exactly surprised – she likes sticking to her routine, and she usually takes a nap about this time of day, before dinner.  Still, it makes life awkward for him, because suddenly there’s no buffer, no fucking excuse for pretending to watch this stupid film and ignoring Ian.  He contemplates waking her up, but can’t do it.  Quite apart from the fact that he’ll pay for it when she’s grumpy later, he looks at her and she looks so fucking _peaceful,_ her head resting on his leg, thumb wedged into her mouth, her nostrils flaring out as she draws in little snuffling breaths.  Her legs kick around even in her sleep.  He strokes one of his hands across the top of her soft, fuzzy curls, feeling them bounce beneath his fingertips.

He can feel Ian looking at him, but he doesn’t acknowledge it.  Just stares straight forward at the TV, not taking in a single thing that’s on the screen but just focusing on keeping his own breath in time.

Until he can’t pretend anymore.  Because Ian picks up the remote, and they’re so fucking close that their arms actually brush together when he does it and that sends a fucking shiver down Mickey’s spine.  And then Ian hits _mute,_ and the cover of the movie is lost.  Mickey finally turns his head and looks over at Ian.  Clearly, he’s got something on his mind.

“This is so fuckin’ strange,” is what Ian says, raising his eyebrows and staring straight into Mickey’s soul.  “Don’t even try to pretend it’s not.  Just sitting here with you, like we’re old friends or some shit.  Like nothing even _happened_ between us.”

Mickey takes a deep, stuttering breath, preparing himself, and finds –

And finds that it’s not that bad, actually, he doesn’t feel like he used to whenever Ian would mention their relationship, like the whole fucking world was sitting on his chest and he was bleeding out of every pore and there were rocks in his stomach and he couldn’t even think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t respond to Ian’s words even if he’d wanted to.  Now, he just feels – awkward, sure, uncomfortable maybe, but _okay,_ like he might survive to see the other end of this conversation.

And Mickey – Mickey has _missed_ Ian, he can admit it, and it’s been two years, and he’s grown up, okay.  So he says;

“Okay, then, so let’s fucking talk about what happened.”

It’s worth saying it just to see that special brand of thrilled shock on Ian’s face, the one he’s always reserved just for Mickey.  Mickey’s seen it the first time he gave Ian a blowjob, when he said he’d missed him, when he got Ian a shitty birthday present that one time, after their first kiss.  This is better than those times.

“You still married?” is the first thing Ian asks, without hesitation.

“Legally, yeah,” Mickey responds.  “It was never real, though, an’ she moved out as soon as my dad died.  Well, she’s moved back into that house now, I said she could when I left or whatever.  She’s actually alright, we’re kind of friends.  She gets – y’know, why I never wanted to fuck her again or anything.”

“Oh yeah, and why’s that?” Ian asks, a harder, mocking edge to his voice now.  Mickey remembers _you love me and you’re gay,_ his boot in Ian’s face, and feels sick.

“’Cus I’m gay,” he says, and it’s – it’s freeing, or some shit like that, and he’s known for a while but this is the first time he’s actually had a reason to say it out loud.  He’s kind of surprised he even said it at all.  Judging by the expression on Ian’s face, so’s he.”

“Oh,” says Ian, a little awkwardly.  He probably feels bad for just spitting it out, before.

“Your turn,” Mickey says then, jumping in quick before Ian can regain his wits.  “The fuckin’ army?  What happened there?  I didn’t hear much about it between you gettin’ back and running off again with Mandy.” 

“It’s pretty simple,” says Ian, shrugging.  “They found out I was underage, lied about my name, stuff like that.  Kicked me out, told me not to come back.  I only got let off serving time in Juvie because I struck a deal to inform about this douchebag training officer.”

Mickey senses there’s a story there, but Ian doesn’t give him a chance to ask about it.  
  
“Anyway, I got back, but I didn’t really wanna be there.  Um, that’s when I got – diagnosed.  I guess I had been pretty low, because then I got manic, and Lip figured out what was going on, took me to the doctor, got me on some meds.  So, y’know, I was feeling kinda better, but being _around_ there again just wasn’t good, I couldn’t do it.  And I told Mandy I was thinking about leaving again, just a couple weeks after I got back, and she hit me around the head and told me to take her with me this time.  Since I didn’t have a clue where I actually wanted to go, just that I wanted it to be away from Chicago, she said we were gonna move here.  Said your aunt used to talk about it or something?  I don’t know, I think she just wanted to be anywhere else, too.  And I couldn’t join the army again, didn’t really have a plan, so I just started working at this bar, and it kinda stuck.”

He’s kind of acting like it’s not a big deal, but Mickey can see the edge of pain behind his words.  It’s been two years.  But two years isn’t that long to recover from losing your lifelong dream.  Mickey had always thought the army thing was dumb, but Ian hadn’t, he’d lived for it for a while, and Mickey’s never been sure enough of his identity to lose it but he imagines it must feel awful.  To know what you want, and lost it.

He opens his mouth to say something about it, but can’t really think what, and Ian cuts him off anyway.

“So, what really happened to your dad?” he asks.  To most people he wouldn’t sound hesitant but Mickey recognises the uncertainty in his voice, like he isn’t sure if Mickey’s gonna punch him for asking, it’s the same tone he’d get whenever he used to ask about things like dates or kissing or not fucking other people.  “Mandy won’t ever talk about it.  She just told me he died while I was away at basic, but I kinda got the feeling there’s more to the story?”

Mickey doesn’t freak out.  He’s impressed with himself for it, but he doesn’t freak out.  He feels, almost, one step removed from the whole situation.  Like he’s – underwater, or maybe floating up by the ceiling, like he’s kind of buffered from the world, like the conversation isn’t really happening to _him_ but to some strange other version of himself, one who doesn’t give a shit.  His brain conjures up the images, his finger on the trigger, the tears on Mandy’s face and the hard set of her jaw, the way the blood had splattered with a foreign-sounding _squelch._ His brain conjures up the images, but they don’t affect him like they usually do.  They feel like they happened to someone else.  He has a hand on Melly’s neck as she sleeps in his lap, can feel her steady slow pulse beneath his scarred fingertips.

“We killed him,” he tells Ian, and doesn’t even check for his reaction, doesn’t even feel bad.  “Me and Mands.  Shot him in the fuckin’ head, after she told me what he’d been doin’ to her.  Don’t tell her I said so, though, if she doesn’t want you to know it’s probably for a fuckin’ reason.”

Ian doesn’t look that surprised.  Or maybe he does, but maybe he also looks happy and that masks it, maybe he even looks a little something like _proud._ All he’d ever wanted was for Mickey to stand up to his father, after all.  For Mickey to fight.  And Mickey had never known how to explain, to Ian whose father wasn’t really his father, to Ian whose loyalty to his siblings was all he needed, was enough to set him on his path in life, to keep him afloat.  Mickey had never known how to explain that his dad was awful and evil and cruel, but was still his _dad,_ had still eaten breakfast with him every morning of his childhood, had still given him sips of beer when his mom had her back turned at family parties, had still clapped Mickey on the back and said “Look at my kid, he’s a natural,” with pride in his voice when Mickey fired a gun for the first time.  Mickey had loved his dad, through everything, he’d hated himself for it but he’d loved his dad.  He still loves his dad, though it makes him sick to his stomach to think it.  As it turns out, you can love someone and still kill them without regretting it.

Mickey expects Ian to have more questions, or to at least _respond_ to the fact that Mickey just admitted to patricide, but he doesn’t.  Instead, he shifts a little on the couch so his whole body is facing Mickey, and just _stares._

Mickey is suddenly aware of the fact that they’re totally alone in the apartment, apart from the sleeping baby.  Is aware of the fact that his blood is hot as it pulses too loud around his body, is aware of the fact that it’s suddenly become a little harder to breathe.  He stares into Ian’s eyes, and swallows, hard.  He could get lost in those fucking eyes, in everything they mean to him, everything they remind him of.  The air between them is thick, electrified, pulsing with a staccato kind of energy that makes the hairs on Mickey’s arms stand on end.  With the movie muted and Melly asleep, there’s silence around them, and he can hear as Ian pulls in a deep breath.  Shifts ever so minutely closer to Mickey.

Mickey licks his lips on instinct, because they’re tingling, feel too warm.  He’s still staring into Ian’s eyes but he can see his lips, too.  They’d only ever kissed twice.  Both times, it was fucking perfect, it made Mickey crave in a desperate, wanton kind of way he didn’t know he was capable of.  It’s been two years since he kissed Ian Gallagher and was cut to his core by it.

The electric air becomes magnified, pulling him closer to Ian.

Mickey thinks, _fuck it._

He lunges towards Ian, so sick of wanting so much and never getting it, so sick of always being the reason for his own downfall.  It’s time to fucking take what he _wants,_ he decides, to say screw the consequences, or maybe to accept that the consequences might be fucking awesome and he doesn’t have to be afraid of that.  Every inch of his body is tense with wanting and he lunges towards Ian Gallagher because he has a choice in the matter and he’s sick of making the wrong one –

And then the front door opens with a bang, the moment and millimetre before their lips can touch, and Mickey springs back to his own seat again before whoever just entered can catch on to what they’ve just walked in on.  He mumbles out a “ _fuck,”_ can’t look at Ian so turns his head the other way to check who just walked through the door.  It’s Emma, the annoying as fuck roommate who doesn’t like it when he swears.  She’s got headphones in and is rooting around in her bag, no clue to what she’s just interrupted, and when she does look up she just greets Ian with a cheery wave, Mickey with an uncertain look, and heads straight to her room.

After she’s closed her door, they’re back in the silence, but the spell’s been broken.  Mickey’s remembered the past, the thousand and one reasons why he’s not good enough for Ian, why he and Ian would never work.

“Um, look, I guess Mandy’s not gonna be home soon so I’ll just text her later,” he says quickly, scooping the still-sleeping kid up in his arms and gathering up her stuff as quickly as he can with one hand, refusing to meet Ian’s eyes.  “I gotta get the kid to bed, gotta get up for work tomorrow, y’know – good seeing you though, man.”

He’s probably left half of Melly’s shit behind but he can’t care, has to get out before Ian can say anything else, so Mickey just races to the door and _leaves._

It’s not until he’s halfway down the street, shivering in the cool air and rubbing his eyes, feeling Melly snuffle against his neck, that he feels like he can breathe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	13. Chapter 13

Mickey’s walking home from work, Melly on his hip, when he turns a corner and finds himself face to face with Ian.

They both jump a little, tense up for a fight before they even realise what’s happening, then relax again when they recognise each other.  Then tense, again, when they remember that they _shouldn’t_ be relaxed around each other, anymore.

“Hey,” says Ian, giving some strange attempt at a smile.  Mickey nods back.

“Hey.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence where Mickey wants nothing more than to be kissing Ian but knows that’s a stupid, dumb thing to want.  Then Ian nods, stiffly, and carries on his way.

Mickey starts walking again, too, but only when Melly gets bored of standing around in thought and tries to pull out his hair.

\--

There’s this shitty coffee shop just around the corner from Mickey’s apartment.  Sometimes, when he’s not working and he doesn’t feel like visiting Mandy but still wants to get out of the house, he goes there.  Melly sits in one of the shitty high chairs and tears pieces off a bagel, happily babbling _da da_ at each chunk, and he drinks black coffee, laughs at her, glares at the people walking past.  It’s fun.  One day they’re doing that, though, and Ian walks in, goes up to the counter, gets his drink, turns back around – freezes when he sees Mickey and Melly.  His coffee is black like Mickey’s.

Mickey has scars from Ian.  Not the pussy ass emotional kind, though he’s sure an argument could be made for that too.  But literal, physical scars, from times when they’ve fought and times when they’ve fucked and times when they’ve done things which seemed like a strange mix of the two.  There’s a small line behind his ear and a jagged dash on his chest and a crescent shape on his hips.  Ian is always gonna be a _part_ of him.  No matter fucking what.

“Hey, man, you can sit with us if you want,” Mickey says.  Ian smiles, does.

\--

He’s sat on the floor of Mandy’s living room, waiting for her to fucking _finally_ finished getting changed so they can go to the park, reading Melly one of the shitty picture books Mandy’s taken to buying from garage sales when she sees them.  He’s just getting into the high-pitched meowing voice of the cranky cat antagonist when Ian walks out of the bathroom.  He’s wearing nothing but his boxers.  Freezes when he sees Mickey but only for a moment, then continues onto the kitchen anyway and Mickey’s not looking, not looking, not looking, not looking and not thinking about the fact that Ian’s body is even more impossibly perfect than it had been two years ago, and he’s not thinking about all the times he’s sucked on that birthmark on Ian’s hip, and he’s not thinking about the faint freckles that dust Ian’s shoulders and the fact that he remembers a time when they were so much more defined.  Ian goes to the fridge, chugs some juice from the carton, goes back to his room without saying a word.

Mickey doesn’t even notice he’s stopped reading mid-sentence until Melly smashes his kneecap with a spoon.

\--

"Light beer, you’re drinking fucking _light beer,_ do I even fucking know you anymore –”

"Maybe if you weren’t throwing a tantrum like a three year old and you’d actually  _try_  it, you’d fucking like it, asshole -”

"If I ever drink light beer take me out back and shoot me because I’ve clearly lost my  _fucking_ nut -”

"If you keep acting like a little fucking bitch I’m gonna take you out back and shoot you right  _now_ you -”

\--

He’s in the pharmacy buying diaper rash cream, and Ian’s at the counter picking up a prescription, and they spot each other at the same time.  Ian freezes, little orange pill bottle clenched in his fist.  Mickey stares at Ian and then at _it_ , at the little dots inside that have so much effect on Ian’s brain these days, at the way Ian’s hand is totally steady as he holds it.

“Hey, man,” is all Mickey says, eventually.  Ian smiles, looks grateful, and it’s enough to send Mickey to the floor.

“Hey,” says Ian, pockets his pills and leaves.  He claps Mickey on the shoulder on his way past, his hand lingering just a moment too long.

\--

It’s just a shitty racing game, but Ian takes it so seriously that Mickey’s _determined_ to win.  He’d been kind of pissed when Mandy had grabbed Ian as he walked past and demanded he stand in for her while she went to shower, but now he’s glad, because it’ll give him a chance to wipe off both Ian’s high score _and_ that dumbass smug look on his face, and really, that’s just good for _everybody._

They’re on the last turn and he’s about to overtake when Melly, who until now has been playing happily at his feet, decides to unleash her little shit nature and grabs at a cable.  Pulls the controller out of his hands.  His car goes veering off to the side and explodes on impact with the edge of the track, and Ian throws his arms into the air and cheers in victory; Mickey glares at him.

“You put her up to that.”

\--

“What the _fuck_ is that smell?” Ian asks, the second he emerges from his bedroom.  Mandy’s long walked away and asked Mickey to call her back out when it’s safe, so Mickey’s alone in her living room, Melly laughing and chewing on her knuckles as she lays on the little plastic changing blanket Mickey carries around everywhere these days.

“Poop explosion,” Mickey responds casually, throwing the offending dirty diaper into a plastic bag.  “All the way out the diaper and up her back, I’m gonna have to change her clothes.  Think this might be a new record.”

Melly giggles.  Ian covers his nose, peers curiously over Mickey’s shoulder.  Then -

“Oh my god, how can you even look at that,” Ian says, recoiling and trying to cover his eyes and nose at the same time, groaning in horror.  “I would throw up, you’re a braver guy than me.”

Mickey just snorts and grabs another baby wipe.

\--

It takes Mickey a while to notice, but one night while they're eating pizza together in front of Ian's TV, and Ian is tickling Melly, it hits him.

Him and Ian are  _friends._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	14. Chapter 14

He doesn’t ask Mandy to babysit.

He keeps saying that.  Over and over again, as she roots around in his apartment, stuffing her bag full of Melly’s toys, food, diapers, a change of clothes.  He _doesn’t ask Mandy to babysit._

For some fucking reason, she does it anyway.

“Mick, you’ve had this kid for like, six months,” she says.  “Have you had a single night off in all that time?”

The answer is no.  The answer is also irrelevant.

“I don’t fucking _need_ one,” he tells her, just like he has been the whole time.  “I don’t got nothing to do even without the kid.  I like having her around.  What the fuck is so hard to understand about that?”

Mandy just shoots him this look like he’s an idiot.  Melly is finding the whole thing hilarious, of course, watching from inside her crib, banging a plastic spoon against a book and pointing at Mandy occasionally.  It’s her way of saying she likes her aunt.  Fucking kid, won’t even back him up.  She’s obsessed with Mandy, but mostly he thinks that’s because she can tell Mandy pisses him off, and that’s Melly’s favourite thing to do.  They’re a match made in hell.

“Mickey, you can pick her up later tonight,” Mandy says.  “Or in the morning, I don’t fucking care.  Just go out and have some _fun_ for a change.  It’ll be good for you, maybe wipe that sour-ass look off your face.”

He didn’t _have_ a ‘sour-ass’ look on his face til Mandy started this whole crusade, but unfortunately, nineteen years of knowing his sister enables him to realise there’s not much point in arguing anymore.  She’s gonna do what she wants.

And that she does.  She straps a still-laughing Melly into her carrier, throws the bag of stuff over her shoulder, and takes off out of Mickey’s apartment, leaving him abandoned in the rubble.

It’s quiet there by himself.

He gets a beer out of the fridge – it’s the last one, he doesn’t really keep much booze around the place anymore but he reminds himself to stock up in case Mandy decides to make this a regular thing – and sits down on the couch.  He turns on the TV, but there’s nothing he wants to watch, and he switches it off again pretty quick.  He only has a few DVDs, and they’re pretty much all shitty kids’ cartoons, a couple of old action movies that he really has no interest in watching.  He sighs, missing Melly already.

It’s sad, but really, the kid is his best friend.  Apart from Mandy, who doesn’t really count because she’s his sister and she drives him crazy, and Ian, who doesn’t really count because he and Mickey have a traumatic history that could fill a whole series of books, and Julie, who doesn’t really count because she’s his boss and he never really sees her outside of work, and Ian and Mandy’s roommates, who he hates and doesn’t speak to – apart from all of them, the kid’s the only person he actually knows in Philly anyway.  And maybe it’s dumb, but she’s the one he likes best.  She’s only one year old but maybe that makes it better, in a way.  There’s not as much pressure with her as there is with everybody else.

He thinks, probably, that Melly shouldn’t count either, when he’s listing his friends.  But regardless of any of that, Mandy’s taken her and he’s not allowed to follow them, which means – well.  He can stay in and drink his one beer in his empty apartment and watch TV that he’s not interested in, or.

He could – and he knows it’s a stupid idea even as he thinks it, but he seems to be ignoring his own brain as he pulls on his boots and his jacket and his scarf, grabs some cash and stuffs it into his pocket, hunts for his keys for ten minutes before finally finding them stuffed down the side of Melly’s crib – he could, maybe, go find Ian.

He knows Ian’s working, but he also knows _where_ Ian works, and it’s only a couple of blocks away.  Besides, he reasons to himself, he doesn’t have any beer left in his apartment and the strange laws in Philly mean you can’t buy booze at most convenience stores, so Ian’s bar is, actually, the closest place for him to get drunk.  It makes total, logical sense.  It doesn’t have anything to do with who’s working behind the bar.  Or, at least, it doesn’t _have_ to have anything to do with that, and Mickey can deny everything if anyone asks.

The bar reminds him of the Alibi.  He thinks it’s funny, how much of his life in Chicago seems to be mirrored here, but in a way that’s so much better.  He’s never actually been inside Last Call before, but the second he steps through the door, he makes the comparison to his old haunt.  There’s only a few people in there – an old guy slumped over at the bar, a couple of giggling middle-aged women at a booth in the corner, some idiot staggering about drunk trying to play pool by himself.  And, behind the bar, Ian.  Wearing a blue plaid shirt that Mickey thinks he recognises from years ago, staring down at his old brick of a phone, texting someone.

Mickey takes a deep breath to dislodge his heart from his throat, and walks over, sits at the bar on a stool right in front of Ian.  Ian looks up, and he looks surprised, but not surprised enough.  Maybe this had been Mandy’s plan all along.

“Hey, man,” Mickey says, trying to play it casual and knowing he’s failing miserably.  “Can I get a beer?”

Ian stares at him for a long moment, but then passes him a drink.

“You’ve never been here before,” Ian points out.  Mickey fights the urge to bite back _no shit Einstein_ , thinks that somehow, that wouldn’t be helpful.

“Uh, Mandy took Melly for the night.”

“So you’ve got a night of freedom?”

In a way, Mickey hates phrasing it like that, because sometimes he feels like having Melly has _given_ him more freedom than he’s ever had before – just because he’s _had_ to make changes, for her sake, things he was too afraid to do for himself, and it’s made his life so much fucking better.  But that seems too serious to blurt out to Ian when they’re just hanging out in a bar, when Mickey doesn’t even know what they relationship is supposed to fucking be, these days.

“Yeah,” he says simply.  “Guess so.”

“And you figured you’d come hang out here?”

Mickey takes a sip of the beer Ian’s set down in front of him, shrugs, tries awkwardly to think of something to say.  He can’t tell Ian’s tone of voice, if he’s happy Mickey thought of him when he wanted someone to hang out with or if he’s pissed that Mickey thinks they can be so casual after all this time.  Ian’s staring straight at him; Mickey forces himself not to look down, stares back, rises to the challenge.

“Knew you were working,” he says, just to see the bubble of shock flit across Ian’s face.  “Didn’t wanna hang out with anyone else.  Plus, no beer at home.”

There’s a long pause, where Mickey just stares, and for once, for fucking _once,_ Ian is the first to look away.  Mickey can’t remember if that’s ever happened before, at least not at a time where either of them was hinting about something to do with fucking _emotion,_ but now Ian breaks the gaze first, goes back to wiping a glass behind the counter.

“Okay,” he says eventually, not quite looking at Mickey.  “I’m working until midnight, not sure if you wanna hang out that long, though.  It’s pretty boring.”

“I don’t mind,” says Mickey.

So he sits at the bar, and nurses his beer, and Ian serves the nine other customers who come in over those next few hours, but mostly, he leans on the bar and talks to Mickey.  They talk about nothing much, watch the wrestling match that’s playing on the TV in the corner and sometimes comment on it, make idle chat about their jobs, baseball, the craziest thing Mandy’s done lately.  It’s nothing, it’s not extreme, it doesn’t even really _matter,_ and somehow that’s just the best fucking thing.  Mickey’s missed a lot of things about Ian, can admit that, he’s missed getting fucked by Ian and he’s missed kissing Ian and he’s missed fighting with Ian and he’s missed the crazy head-swirling intensity that he always feels just being in the same _room_ as Ian, but he thinks maybe, most of all, he’s missed the times when they just hung out.  Got high, watched movies, played video games, dicked around doing nothing much and just enjoying their dumb lives.  Mickey’s never really been a guy who has friends.  Ian was more than that, but also, in a way, he was Mickey’s _best_ friend for a while, and that’s a hard thing to lose.

At one point, there’s not a single other customer in the bar – Mickey wonders how this place is making any fucking money whatsoever, let alone enough to stay open, because it doesn’t seem like they get much fucking business – so he and Ian play pool.  Mickey thinks that’s a good idea up until the point that they actually _start,_ because it turns out Ian’s not actually fucking half bad.

“When the fuck did you learn to play?” Mickey asks, disgruntled, when Ian sinks yet another ball into the corner pocket. “Last time we played you hardly knew which end of the fucking cue to hold.”

Ian just laughs a little, flicks some chalk at Mickey.

“Two years is a long time, Mick,” he says, and for once it doesn’t sound like layers upon layers of meaning, it doesn’t sound like he’s talking about their thousand years of past and every single bad thing that ever happened to them all at once, it just sounds like he’s stating a fucking fact.  Two years is a long time.  Two years is long enough to learn how to play pool.

It still makes Mickey sad, though.

Later, when Ian’s won the game and Mickey’s grumbled and called him a fucking cheater but gracefully declined a rematch, Ian’s shift is up.  Some middle-aged chick with an impressively large afro comes in to replace him at the bar, babysit the three old drunks who are currently forming the place’s entire clientele, and then Ian’s free.

“Er,” says Mickey, when he’s still sat at the bar, watching Ian shrug into his jacket.

“You gonna hang around?” Ian asks, like he thinks Mickey has a single fucking other reason to be in that shitty bar than _him._ Mickey stands up from the barstool, abandoning his beer even though it’s only half drunk.

“Gotta pick up Melly,” he says, as his excuse, though Ian must surely know that’s not the whole reason, but he doesn’t say anything.  “Don’t wanna stick Mandy with her the whole night, she can be a pain." 

“Okay,” says Ian, easily.  “Let’s go.”

Oh.  Yeah.  Ian’s heading home, and Ian’s home is shared with Mandy, and Mandy’s the one who has Melly – they’re headed to the same place.  Mickey’s brain had somehow blocked that from him, for a minute.

So, they set off.

The bar’s not far away from Ian and Mandy’s place, and for the most part, they walk in silence.  Mickey’s glad of that, isn’t sure he’d know what to say if Ian tried to make conversation.  This whole night has been fucking _surreal,_ half the time Mickey’s felt like he’s totally forgotten their whole history and is just hanging out with a nice normal guy, the other half their history has been _all_ he can think about, so much he can’t breathe.  After all this time, Ian’s still so the _same_ , so fucking different at the same time.  He can play pool now.  He still rests a hand on the back of his head, messing up his hair, when he’s annoyed.

In a way, hanging out tonight has reminded Mickey of – fuck, nearly five years ago, it’s been nearly _five_ fucking years.  But yeah, it’s reminded him of then.  When him and Ian first started hanging out – a while after they’d started fucking, but not that long, really, before they got caught by Kash and Mickey went to Juvie the first time.  Mickey hadn’t understood what was happening, the first time they were in his bed, had just come, and Ian lit up a cigarette instead of leaving straight away.  It had only spiralled from there.

The idea of someone actually _wanting_ to spend time with him was something Mickey had never encountered before then, and it kind of threw him for a loop.

And that was nearly five fucking years ago, and after all this time, after _everything,_ it seems _impossible_ that Ian would still maybe want him around.

Impossible, except maybe not, because it’s actually happening.  Because they’re walking together, mostly silent, listening to the sounds of the city around them, people yelling and laughing and sirens wailing in the distance, cars and music and _noise,_ too much noise for late at night.  And they’re walking, and their shoulders keep bumping together.  They’re both wearing coats and sweaters and t-shirts and gloves, couldn’t engineer a touch of their skin if they tried, but still, every casual brush of their bodies together drives Mickey _insane._ Because Ian doesn’t flinch away.  There’s plenty of space on the sidewalk, Ian could easily move over, put some distance between them if the touches bothered him, but he doesn’t.

Mickey looks down, watches his and Ian’s battered boots walk side by side, trudging through the slush of half-melted snow.  His boots are brown; Ian’s are grey.  Ian’s have odd laces, one black and new looking, the other thicker, the same grey as the boots, worn out and frayed at the ends.  Their steps are perfectly in time.

Before Mickey knows it, they’re at Ian’s apartment building; go inside, start to head up the stairs.  Somehow it’s always the little things that matter the most to Mickey.  Ian’s shoulder bumps against his; Ian’s left boot kicks at the top step; Ian coughs, the sound small and low in the back of his throat.

They’re outside Ian’s apartment.  Neither of them goes to open the door.

Mickey looks up from Ian’s scuffed boots, finally, tilts his head back just the tiniest bit, the amount he needs to see Ian’s face.  Ian’s staring straight back at him, eyes soft and dark at the same time.

Mickey licks his lips.  Ian raises his hand slightly, changes his mind, drops it back to his side again.  Gulps.  The air is strange, too _present_ but not quite heavy, more _inflated,_ like with one wrong sharp word Mickey could pop the whole world.

So he doesn’t say anything.  Instead, holds his breath in the back of his throat, swallows the loud pulsing of his heart which is echoing around his ears, and leans in.  Slow.  Giving Ian time to move back.

Ian doesn’t.  Stays stock still.

Mickey doesn’t close his eyes, watches Ian’s face loom closer, watches as the faded freckles which paint Ian’s nose get clearer, as he gets so close that he can see the flecks of brown in Ian’s soft green eyes, so close he can feel Ian’s soft breath against his face.

Their lips are only a fraction apart.  Mickey’s head is spinning, his stomach is churning, his whole body feels on fire, he couldn’t breathe even if he wanted to, this is crazy, fucking crazy, this is what he has been _craving_ for two years, the madness that is Ian Gallagher and the way their relationship sets Mickey alight to his very _bones._ The dark and dingy hallway seems somehow, blindingly bright, and Mickey can’t look away from Ian’s face, can’t fight the heat that’s swirling around his whole body, the tingling in his lips that’s too intense to stand as he leans in, just that little bit closer, to close the gap between them –

And then the front door swings open with a crash, and they jump apart the second before they can touch.

“Hey!” says Mandy brightly, from the other side of the door.  “I thought I heard someone coming up the stairs.  Mickey, your kid’s a fucking nightmare.  Why are you two together?”

“I didn’t ask you to take her,” Mickey grumbles, at the same time as Ian says;

“He came into the bar.”

Mandy doesn’t seem to have a fucking clue what she’s interrupted, just ushers them both inside.  The bright light above the kitchen is on, but the living room is dark, only lit by the light which seeps out from the kitchen, everybody else in the apartment apparently in bed.

That’s why Mickey doesn’t notice the guy on the sofa until Mandy points him out.

“Ian, Scott got here a minute ago,” she says, when Ian and Mickey are just standing around not looking at each other, neither making any moves to get further into the apartment.  Ian’s head snaps up when she says it; so does Mickey’s.

The guy on the sofa looks up from his phone.

He’s an asshole, Mickey immediately decides.  He’s wearing a fucking _backwards cap_ over his dark hair, and a clean t-shit with a slogan that Mickey can’t read, which is too tight, shamelessly showing off his six pack.  He probably lives at the gym, thinks about nothing but his looks, is a shallow douchebag.  Mickey can’t even see him properly, but can already tell he’s smarmy as fuck.

“Hey, Ian,” he says from the living room, voice thick with a Latino accent.  “I was bored, you wanna hook up?”

Next to Mickey, Ian hesitates.

He doesn’t hesitate for long enough, though.

He claps Mickey on the shoulder, the ultimate platonic bro gesture, and then takes off, heads back to his room with douchebag Scott trailing leisurely behind him, leaves Mickey stood in the bright bright kitchen, wishing it wasn’t the light bulb illuminating the space, wishing he was back in the dark cold hallway where it was _Ian_ lighting up his whole world.

He can’t think like that.  His heart feels cramped, like it’s been shoved into a space too small, and he can’t think about it, can’t deal with it, can’t _change_ it, so he swallows and just spins around to face Mandy.

“You satisfied?” he asks her.  “It’s been five hours.  Can I have my fucking kid back now?”

She looks at him.  There’s the strangest expression on her face, softer than Mandy usually lets herself be.  For a moment, she kind of looks like the girl Mickey knows she is underneath the surface, only she’s directing all that openness at _him_ and he doesn’t know why.  He frowns at her, a silent question, and she seems to snap out of her daze, shaking her head a little, hair ruffling around her shoulders

“That’s just the first time I’ve heard you call her _yours.”_

“Oh,” he says, tries to remember if he ever _has_ said that before.  “Well, I mean, she kinda is, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, Mickey.  She definitely is.”

She says it in a way like it’s supposed to _mean_ something to him, but all he hears is a plain fact.  Melly’s his.  Has been for a while.  Why Mandy’s looking like that’s some huge fucking revelation, he has no idea.  He supports this kid, he looks after her, he feeds her and plays with her and changes her and washes her and reads to her and lets her fall asleep on him.  He fucking named her; she’s his, for good, now.

He loves her.  That’s not something Mickey’s ever been able to say about a lot of people.

And, somehow, that makes him feel a little better.  Looking at the closed door of Ian’s room, his stomach still churns and there’s still a bitter sting at the corner of his eyes, and it still sucks, everything still _sucks._ But he has Melly, he loves her, he has her.

So he goes and gets her out of Mandy’s room, says goodbye to Mandy before she can bring up any other fucking touchy subjects, and he leaves.  Hugs Melly as tight to his body as he can without hurting her, the whole walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	15. Chapter 15

Mickey doesn’t do doctors.

His whole fucking life, he’s never been to a doctor.  As many fights as he’s been in, as many accidents, as many times as he’s probably really fucking _needed_ medical attention, Mickey’s never been to a doctor.  If he or any of his siblings ever got sick as kids, they’d be confined to their rooms and given whatever meds were already in the house.  After their mom died, they were just left to fend for themselves, and they all developed a system of curing illness by going into a semi-hibernation and not leaving their beds until the thing had run its course, no matter how brutal it was.  The times that he’s needed surgery – for instance, both times he was fucking _shot –_ he’s had makeshift kind of arrangements, doctors coming to him, often in a not entirely legal way – for instance, Ian’s geriatric fuckbuddy operating on him on the Gallagher kitchen counter.  But actually going to a doctor’s office or a hospital to seek out medical attention, no way.  Mickey doesn’t _do_ doctors.

Of course, the second Melly starts coughing, he breaks that rule.

She’s had her shots, of course, but that was from a nurse at the free clinic, so he still doesn’t really know what to expect from the actual _doctor_.  As it turns out, his wariness was smart - the douchebag is so condescending that Mickey immediately vows to renew his no-doctors policy with vigour as soon as he gets the hell out of there.  But Melly’s coughing and crying and Mickey can’t help her, and that’s more important, so he puts up with it.  The doctor tells Mickey that Melly just has a cold, makes some joke about always being able to spot a first time parent just through their paranoia.  Mickey cracks his knuckles a couple of times and the guy doesn’t make any more jokes; Mickey says a few carefully chosen words and gets a prescription for something way better than baby aspirin to make Melly feel better, even if it won’t get rid of her cold.

He calls Julie and tells her he _needs_ a couple of days off work, doesn’t ask, and thanks his fucking stars that she seems to find his protective parenting endearing rather than bollocking him like Linda would have if he ever asked for a day off unexpectedly.  Then, he turns their apartment into the ultimate comfort nest.  He builds the comfiest fucking structure in existence in their living room, out of all the pillows and blankets they own, props Melly up in it so that she’s sat straight enough to not cough so much but still reclined in case she wants to sleep.  He surrounds her with tissues, her favourite toys, soft foods that won’t hurt her throat, puts fucking _classical music_ on the radio because it always seems to calm her down, sits next to her on the floor and talks to her in his softest voice because she loves when he does that.

Every hour he checks her temperature with the forehead-strip thermometer he got at the drugstore, every three hours he gives her cough syrup.  She won’t take it off a spoon, too wary of the way it looks, but it’s thick and sticky so instead he smears it on the end of her pacifier, which she happily sucks down without even noticing she’s being medicated.  She seems upset, most of the time, cries softly which breaks his heart because there’s nothing he can do about it, wriggles about but doesn’t actually try to move or crawl away, which is rare for her, clearly her chest hurts when she pushes herself along.

Still, they make it through a day like that.  The doctor had said her cold wouldn’t last more than a week, probably less, and that she would get over the worst of it soon.  But still, when he wakes up from the few fitful hours of sleep he’s managed to get, it’s to the sound of her coughing and crying.

Mickey’s not used to this.  Being angry at something he can’t beat up.  He fucking _wishes_ he could beat up this cold, wishes there was a way he could punch each and every germ right in its smarmy little germ-face for hurting _his_ kid, but there’s not.

He spends most of that second day the same way as the first, except at the same time, he’s trying to figure out who he can blame for Melly getting sick just so he can punch them.  He bets she caught it from that bitch she went on a playdate with the week before.  Unfortunately, that bitch is only two, so he doesn’t feel beating on her is much more of an option than beating on the actual germs.

Apart from his ever increasing rage, that second day goes okay.  Melly’s miserable which makes _him_ miserable, but he’s handling it; he talks to her, plays her music, bundles her up warm and then checks her temperature obsessively, cuddles her to his chest and walks around the apartment for hours, rubbing her back as she sniffles into his shirt.  Everything’s going fine.

Until the unthinkable happens.

They run out of baby cough syrup.

His first thought is simple – go and get some more.  But the nearest drugstore is six blocks away and he doesn’t want to take Melly out in the rain, there’s no fucking way that’s a good idea.  So then he calls Mandy, thanking the fucking lord for all the crazy ass coincidences that ended with him living in the same city as her.

But when she answers, he can barely hear her, there’s so much loud thumping music and shouting in the background, and what he can catch of her voice is slurred.

“Sorry, I can’t drive!” he manages to hear her yelling.  “I’m on some good shit!”

“It’s three in the fucking afternoon!” he says, doesn’t know why he’s shocked because it’s _Mandy,_ but still.

“That’s why it’s fun!” she yells back, and then hangs up before he can judge her any further.  With a sigh, he runs his hand over his face, then rubs Melly’s back gently as she coughs and cries at the same time.  Clicks onto his phone’s address book.

There’s not really many other people he can turn to.  There’s Julie, but she’s already covering the store since he said he couldn’t come in, plus he doesn’t really think he wants to ask his boss for any favours, it puts him way too deep in uncharted waters.  Apart from her, there’s only really –

Mickey doesn’t want to, hates the idea of asking _him_ for help when everything with them is so beyond strange lately, but Melly’s upset and these days Mickey can’t even try to deny that she comes above _everything_ else for him.

So he swallows his weird feelings, and calls Ian.

Godsend that he is, Ian’s there in ten minutes.  He has the baby cough syrup Mickey had asked for, but also a bunch of bananas, a box of donuts, and two cups of coffee.  When Mickey opens the door, a crying Melly balanced on one hip and a chewed-up teddy in his hand, he could almost cry with happiness.

“I figured you hadn’t done too much for yourself the last couple of days,” Ian says a few minutes later, when Melly’s sucking the medicine off her pacifier in her pillow-den and Ian and Mickey are sat at the kitchen table, Mickey already on his second donut, guzzling down coffee at the same time.  Most people would probably look grossed out, but Ian just seems to find it funny, chugs his own coffee and looks at Mickey in a too-soft kind of way.

“Yeah, it’s been crazy,” Mickey admits.  “Just been trying to focus on getting her better, figure I can deal with my own shit once she’s okay.  Hey, you don’t have any idea how to cure a cold, do you?”

That’s how Mickey and Ian end up standing together in a steam-filled bathroom, waving Melly about over the top of their heads.

“You sure this works?” Mickey asks, still dubious, and Ian snorts.

“We always used to do it with Carl when he got sinus infections,” he says.  “The steam helps unblock all your airways.  It should help her nose stop running, and her cough.”

“Why we gotta hold her up so high, though?”

“Steamier up there,” Ian says, shrugging.

It’s a sign of how fucking whipped Mickey still is after all this time that he just goes along with it.

“See, she seems better already, right?” Ian says a few minutes later, during his turn to hold Melly up.  Mickey had actually been too busy focusing on the fact that the steam was making his shirt stick to him and it was gross, but when he thinks about it, looks up, _yeah,_ Melly’s not crying anymore, her face is damp and her nose is running but she seems happier, in less pain.  Ian’s a fucking miracle worker.  No real surprise there, of course.

“That’s fucking amazing,” he says, not sure whether to stare at Ian or Melly, happy either way.  “Here, pass her over.”

He misses having her in his arms, he realises, snatches her away from Ian.  He holds her under her armpits so she’s facing him, watches her little legs kick the air for a moment, then leans in and blows a raspberry on her stomach.  She laughs, and he does, too, because he’s missed that sound the last few days when all she’s done is cry.  Then he holds her back up over his head.

It’s only when she’s out of his line of sight that he notices Ian is staring at him strangely.

“What?” he grunts, suddenly self-conscious – which, as always for him, goes hand in hand with _hostile._

“Nothing,” says Ian quickly.  “Well, actually – I just, I think it’s cute.  The way you are with her.”

“Oh,” says Mickey, shifting uncomfortably, not sure how to respond.

“I mean, it’s just so obvious how much you care about her, it’s really sweet,” Ian continues.  “And I never would have pictured you like this, ever.  I mean, I guess, back before I actually knew you, back when all I knew was your reputation, I could have pictured you knocking some girl up, ending up stuck with a kid.  But not like this, I mean – being a good fucking dad, it’s crazy, especially since she’s not even really yours.”

Mickey pauses for a long moment.

“She’s really mine,” he says, feels dumb for saying it but also kind of _has_ to.  “Fuck if I know how it happened, but I mean, these days?  I dunno what I’d do if Tony wanted her back or some shit.  She’s mine, man.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ian says lightly, but his expression doesn’t match his words somehow, is staring at Mickey too intense, too fucking _contemplative,_ and Mickey doesn’t know what to do. 

“Um, I better get some food in her while she’s not crying,” he says, desperate to change the subject.  “Most of the steam’s gone now, anyway.”  
  
That’s not remotely true, but Ian goes along with it, follows Mickey back out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, watches as Mickey mashes up one of the bananas Ian had brought with him and spoons it into Melly’s mouth without ever moving her from his hip.  When she’s eaten that, Mickey gives her a beaker of juice, and puts her back down in the pile of pillows with her toys.

“Da da,” she babbles, letting out a weak cough right after.  Ian’s eyebrows shoot up.

“She’s talking to her bear,” Mickey explains, quickly.  “Just thinks it’s a nice sound, doesn’t have a fucking clue what it means.”

Ian looks over to Melly, where she is, sure enough, nose-to-nose with her teddy, having what seems to be a very intense conversation.

“So, does she call you Mickey, then?” he asks.  Mickey pauses, thinks about it.

“She doesn’t really call me anything,” he admits.  “I mean, I’m always around her, so she never really needs to.”

“But do you think she _will_ call you Mickey?” Ian pushes.  “Or dad, or what?”

“Um,” says Mickey.  Doesn’t say anything else.  Doesn’t know _what_ to say.  After a few moments of silence, Ian laughs slightly, stands up from the chair he’s sat in.

“Okay, she’s gonna call you _um,_ good to know,” he says, rolling his eyes as he shrugs on his jacket.  “I should get going.  Call me if you need anything else, yeah?”

He claps Mickey on the shoulder – that seems to be his fucking go to move these days, and Mickey hates it in a way just because it’s nothing _more,_ but also loves it because it means Ian touching him, so it’s a big confusing mess for such a small gesture.  Mickey tries to think of a way to ask Ian to hang around, but doesn’t have a single good excuse, so he helplessly watches Ian let himself out. 

He sits for a moment longer, letting his head clear.  Trying to ignore the sudden crazy fucking fantasies he’s having of him and Ian, together, doing stuff with Melly – as if they were some kind of fucking family.  Looking after her together.  It’s fucking dumb and it hurts his heart.

He sighs, looks over at Melly playing in her little nest of cushions, and goes to check her temperature again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com</a>)


	16. Chapter 16

Working at the Grab and Save isn’t a particularly wild job.  Mickey spends most of his days sat on the stool behind the counter, playing with Melly and selling cigarettes to kids he should probably ID.  When Melly naps in the back room, he stacks shelves, does inventory.  He knows a lot of people would find it boring, and maybe it is, in a way, but in another way he loves the predictability of it.  The stability.  He likes turning up each day and knowing what to expect – his whole life, everything’s been completely crazy from dawn to dusk, and it’s nice to have a break from that.  His shitty job actually feels like growth, to him.  He’s almost fucking proud of himself.

The one thing that does change while he’s working there is Julie.

At first, he’d rarely seen her.  Though she’d been there his first day, it had hardly taken much time for him to learn the ropes, and she’d pretty much left him alone once she had ascertained that he knew how to open the register, work the label gun, and stack canned beets in an efficient way.  The store isn’t really big enough to ever need more than one employee there at a time, so while Julie picks up some shifts, she doesn’t ever really need to be about when Mickey is.  He opens up in the mornings, works most days, and only sees her when she comes to relieve him in the late afternoon.  There’s one more cashier, a teenage girl who works weekends and counts inventory wrong and snaps her gum, but Mickey rarely sees her – they never work at the same time.

So, yeah, that’s their routine for a while, and it’s fine.  Mickey likes working by himself, just him and Melly and the briefest flashes of customers throughout the day.  It’s working out well for him.

Until, slowly, so slowly he doesn’t even notice it happening until it’s happened, Julie starts turning up during his shifts.

It’s pretty fucking obvious why.  She _adores_ Melly.  All she does when she comes by is sit on the floor behind the counter and play with Melly’s dolls and teddies, help feed her, talk to her in a dumb fucking baby voice.  Mickey can’t exactly blame her – Melly _is_ the cutest thing on the face of the planet – but still.  It’s strange.  It’s not that he doesn’t like Julie, but she’s just – so fucking _cheerful._ He’s not used to it.  Especially since it seems that Melly just amplifies her cheeriness by an unfathomable percentage, leading to far too many giggles and squeals for Mickey’s liking.

He asks her, at one stage, if she has any kids.  From all the conversations he’s had with her, he’s gleaned that for some fucked up reason Linda is her _idol,_ and since Linda’s got her three brats, he figures Julie must too.  But she just smiles, shakes her head.

“I’m working on it,” she says, ruffling Melly’s hair.  “Need a guy first, though!”

Mickey thinks that’s debatable, but keeps the thought to himself.

The subject of _needing a guy_ also comes up one night with Mandy.  They’re hanging out at her place, eating dinner with Melly on the living room floor, and Mandy won’t stop looking at him.  It’s weird.  Every time he looks away from Melly and towards Mandy, Mandy quickly looks away, tries to act casual, like she hasn’t been staring at the side of his head for the better part of two hours with a constipated fucking look on her face. 

She finally spits it out when they’ve finished eating and are watching Melly chew her teddy bear’s ears.

“So there’s this new guy at work,” Mandy says, in her I’m-trying-too-hard-to-be-casual voice, which only serves to make Mickey more suspicious.

“Oh yeah?” he replies cautiously.

“Yeah,” she says, starts playing with Melly’s toes, doesn’t look directly at him.  “Cory.  He’s cute.  Blonde.  Kinda grungy.  He’s got this big tat on his arm, of a rifle.  I tried coming on to him but he wasn’t interested.”

“Okay,” he says, bewildered.

“ _Okay,”_ she mocks, rolling her eyes.  “ _So,_ I was thinking I could set you guys up.”

Mickey’s eyebrows shoot up; his mouth falls open so fast he thinks he might get a bruise on his chin from where it hits the ground.  _That’s_ what this was about?  
  
“No fuckin’ way!” he responds immediately.  Jesus fucking Christ, he has no idea what he did in a past life to deserve such a nosy fuckin’ sister but it must have been _awful._

“Oh come _on_ Mickey,” she says, shifting over to put her hands on his knees like she’s fucking _begging,_ finally meeting his eyes.  “It’s so fucking _boring_ watching you not have a life.  All you do is look after Melly and awkwardly pine for Ian, you _need_ a new boyfriend.  Cory’s nice, he’d make a good boyfriend, but he’s not _too_ nice so he’s not boring, I think you guys would be great together.”

“Mandy,” he says, not even sure how to respond.  “I don’t need my fucking _sister_ to find me a boyfriend.  If I wanted one, I’d fuckin’ have one, okay?”

She pauses for a moment, stares at him, and he stares back at her, jaw set.

“Ugh, fine,” she says eventually, taking her hands off his knees and rolling to the side so she’s sat next to him instead.  “You should at least bang someone, though.  Celibacy’s fuckin’ pathetic.  Can I take you to a gay bar?  Ian likes the one on North street, he says that’s where the slutty guys go.”

Mickey did _not_ need to know that.

At this stage, he kind of wants to punch Mandy.  Doesn’t know what else to do, what else to say.  Because honestly, he doesn’t care much about sex, these days.  He just wants to look after Melly, make sure she gets a shot at a much less shitty life than he’s had, and he’d be willing to give up pretty much anything to make that happen.  He doesn’t have time for dating and fucking and _gay bars,_ he doesn’t have time and he doesn’t care.

Plus – well.  He would never say it to Mandy, would probably never say it out loud at all, except to Melly when she wants a bedtime story and her eyes are fluttering shut and she’s curled against his chest, because that’s the only time he feels like actually confessing to this kind of shit.  But –

Ian’s _ruined_ him for anyone else.  Mickey’s gotten fucked by two guys since Ian, been blown by one more, and none of it had felt good, and when it was over he’d just wanted to crawl home and go to sleep, because he felt so _fucking_ empty.  Ian’s it, for Mickey, and that’s okay, he’ll focus on Melly, maybe get a cat once she leaves home, and it won’t be a big deal.  Ian can go be happy with other people, and Mickey will be happy too, in his own way.  But it won’t be with other guys.  He knows that for fucking sure.

“No gay bars,” is all he says to Mandy.  “Butt the fuck out.”

He highly doubts she’ll let the matter go – Mandy’s hardly known for doing what people tell her to – but she at least drops it for the moment. 

Mickey isn’t sure if it’s good luck or bad luck that Ian walks in two seconds later.  It’s definitely good luck that he missed the conversation Mandy had just been trying to have.  But it’s bad luck that he doesn’t wait another ten minutes, by which time Mickey would have left and they could have avoided running into each other at all.

Mickey hasn’t got a fucking clue what’s going on with him and Ian – all he knows is that whenever they’re in the same room, it’s tense as _fuck_ and he doesn’t know how to handle it.  So as soon as Ian steps through the front door, shaking his rain-soaked hair and toeing off his shoes the second he’s inside, Mickey kind of freezes.  It takes Ian a moment to notice there’s anyone else in the apartment at all; probably would have been a lot longer, except just as Ian’s shrugging off his jacket in the kitchen, Melly decides to let out a loud shout.  She’s noticed that everyone’s stopped paying attention to her for longer than two seconds.

As soon as he hears her, Ian’s head swivels around, and he notices Mickey and Mandy sat on the floor next to the couch.  His eyes sweep right over Mandy, despite the cheerful wave she shoots him, and latch straight onto Mickey.

Mickey feels his breath catch in his throat.  Because Ian and Mandy’s place is so big, him being sat by the couch and Ian being stood in the kitchen means they’re not exactly staring at each other up close.  But even from a distance, something about Ian just makes Mickey feel like he’s suspended in time, like he’s in some strange kind of bubble where nothing else matters at all.  He always loses track of time with Ian.  And Ian in this moment, like in all moments, is so fucking _beautiful,_ with his wet hair hanging in his eyes and his nose turned pink from the cold and his shirt rumpled and his bare toes curling into the floor and his eyes trained on Mickey.  Mickey stares at him, and holds his breath, and loses track of time.

Then Ian says, “Hey guys,” and walks over to them, and it must not have been very long at all that he and Mickey were staring at each other because Mandy hasn’t noticed it and made a snide comment.  Ian sits down on the floor next to Mandy, folding his gangly legs into an uncomfortable-looking knot and sticking his tongue out at Melly to get a laugh.  She happily obliges with a delighted giggle; then she crawls over to Ian and flings herself into his lap, looking over her shoulder at Mickey as if to say _do you understand how great this guy is?_

Mickey just huffs a sigh in her direction, scratches his nose.  Yeah.  Yeah, he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	17. Chapter 17

Because Mickey’s life is ridiculous, things come to a head because of pizza toppings.

He’s hanging out at Ian and Mandy’s.  That’s hardly an irregular occurrence these days, so nobody makes a big deal out of it; all their roommates are there, littered around the apartment doing their own thing, and Ian’s on his laptop in the corner, studying, and Mickey and Mandy are playing a video game, while Melly sleeps in Mandy’s room.  It’s dinner time, though none of them really notice it until Emma’s stomach rumbles loudly from where she’s sat reading by the window.

“Can anyone be fucked to cook?” Mandy asks, and nobody responds.  “Didn’t think so.  Emma, find the number of the good pizza place?”

And so they all gather around the counter, choosing what to get.  They pretty quickly decide on three pizzas, all pepperoni, “the universal favourite” says David, and everybody laughs.  Except Mickey, who actually hates pepperoni.

But everybody else seems happy enough with it, so he figures there’s no real point in making a fuss - he can just pick the pepperoni off his slices.  It’s not exactly rocket science, he doesn’t even need a high school diploma to know how to dispose of unwanted pizza toppings.  So he doesn’t say anything, just goes along with it.

He doesn’t say anything.  But someone else does.

It’s just when Emma’s picking up the phone to call their order in, and Ian snorts, snatches it out of her hand and waves it at Mickey, like it’s supposed to goddamn _mean_ something.  He’s been mostly silent up until then, staring at Mickey in a way that Mickey hadn’t been quite able to place – he figures he’s about to find out why.

“You’re _seriously_ not gonna say anything?” he asks, and Mickey frowns.

“What the fuck?” he asks, not even sure what Ian’s talking about.

“You _hate_ pepperoni, Mick.”

And, oh yeah, for a moment Mickey had temporarily forgotten that Ian Gallagher knows every fucking thing about him and that fact has a habit of ruining his life.

“The fuck are you talking about?” is all he replies, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, the one time I tried to feed you pepperoni you nearly beat my ass, you said it tastes like horse shit.”

“So I’ll pick it the fuck off, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Ian snorts derisively.

“Oh, yeah, funny how compromising on the things you want never seems to be that big of a deal to you.”

So _that’s_ what this is about.  Mickey can feel everybody staring at them but he doesn’t even care, can feel the anger boiling in his blood, anger that’s been there for two fucking years and that he hasn’t had a chance to _say_ yet.  He stands up out of his chair, faces Ian head on.

“Maybe you should _learn_ how to fucking compromise instead of just throwing fucking hissy fits every time something doesn’t go your way.”

“In what fucking universe do _I_ not know how to compromise, all I _do_ is compromise, I did three _fucking_ years of compromising there’s no way you can blame me for being sick of that –”

Ian’s standing up, now, too, and he’s taller than Mickey but Mickey doesn’t care, feels miles high with anger.

“Oh yeah, sure, because running off on someone who’s just trying to save your _life_ because you don’t like how things turned out totally counts as compromising –”

Ian reaches out and shoves Mickey’s chest; Mickey stumbles back a few steps, hadn’t been prepared for that, but catches himself on the edge of the counter and charges straight back towards Ian.

“You were never trying to save _my_ fucking life, Mick, you were trying to save _your_ life, because you’re pussy scared of your dad and of _yourself –_ ”

Mickey’s whole world is tinted red, his head is fucking _screaming,_ he’s so fucking mad he can’t even believe it.  He doesn’t know how this has happened so fucking fast because everyone was getting on just a minute ago, everything was normal, but now his blood is fucking _boiling,_ he hadn’t realised how fucking _mad_ he still is about everything that went down.

So he cuts off Ian’s words with a fist to his face.  Can feel the soft skin of Ian’s cheek move under his rough knuckles as they slam into him.  Hears the gasps from Ian’s roommates behind him, but can’t care about them, only fucking cares about Ian, about how Ian’s gonna react to that.

Ian recovers in less than a second, grabs Mickey’s shoulders, and headbutts him so hard Mickey sees stars for a moment.

After that,they’re off.  Ian staggers backwards and Mickey charges back towards him, throws a punch to Ian’s gut, gets hit in the nose in response, kicks Ian’s shin hard, digs his nails into Ian’s shoulders as Ian tries to shove him backwards.  They fight brutal and dirty just like they used to; it makes Mickey think of their first time, or the time they did lines of coke off the back of Ian's phone and they went crazy together, fighting and fucking under the L tracks.  Mickeys angry as they fight but he knows he's not only angry at what they're fighting about; he's angry because it’s his fault they don't _have_ this anymore.  He's angry because he hasn't seen Ian in two years and their relationship will never be the same and he was the one who should have done something to stop that, he thinks, and he’s angry at Ian too because, yeah, it’s his faulttoo, it’s both of their fault and neither of their fault at the same time, so really he’s just angry at and about everything, and he’s never really been able to address that before, except now he can, with his fists battering into Ian’s chest.  He’s so.  Fucking.  _Angry_.

He sinks his fist into Ian’s jaw, then feels the sharp stab of Ian punching him in the gut, doubles over for a second before recovering, shoving Ian’s chest and punching him in the arm, shoulder, stomach.  There’s a kind of anger in Ian’s eyes that Mickey’s rarely seen, and it must be giving him some fucking superhuman kind of strength, because he grabs Mickey by the shoulders and shoves him backwards so hard Mickey crashes into the wall, letting out an _oomph_ of pain as the breath is knocked out of him.  Then Ian pins Mickey to the wall, battering him with punches.  Mickey slams his head forwards, headbutts Ian with all the force he has.

Then, a moment of stillness.  Ian’s still pinning Mickey to the wall, and both their chests are heaving, they’re both bloody and angry and staring at each other, so fucking close Mickey can feel himself going cross eyed.

He doesn't even know what's happening when they change from fighting to kissing, kissing with tongues and teeth and anger, biting each other’s lips, pressing together so hard Mickey knows his mouth will be bruised in the morning.  Ian has him pressed against the wall and Mickey’s struggling against him, still fighting even as they kiss.  He manages to shove forwards enough to push Ian away and they go tumbling backward together, still joined furiously at the mouth as Ian crashes into the back of the sofa.

They only pull apart when Mickey opens his eyes for a moment and realises that everybody else is still there.  Mandy, looking shocked but also a little smug, and Ian's boring other roommates, whose jaws are hanging open so far he thinks they're in danger of dislocating.  He shoves Ian away quickly – Ian falls back against the couch, panting, dazed expression on his face, his lips and cheeks flushed angry red, his hair a mess from Mickey’s hands.  Mickey knows he must look no better, and yet all he can do is stare at Ian, feel the stares of everybody else on him, wonder how the fuck the rest of his life is gonna turn out after this moment because it sure as _hell_ isn’t gonna be the same again.

“What the _fuck_!” Emma cries a moment later, the first to get her voice back, though it comes out high pitched and shaky.  He takes a moment to consider how hypocritical it is, considering the looks she always shoots him when _he_ swears.

“I’m going home,” says Mickey, his voice rough and low and breaking in all the wrong places, but at least coherent enough to get his point across.  He grabs Melly from Mandy’s arms, doesn’t bother collecting any of their stuff, leaves her toys strewn all over the floor and just walks straight to the door, his whole body on autopilot, barely remembering to snatch his jacket off the hook before he leaves.

As soon as he’s outside, he shrugs on his coat and tucks Melly inside it to keep her warm on the short walk home.  The cold air is soothing to the throbbing areas of his face and body where Ian had landed punches; Mickey had kind of forgotten how good of a fighter Ian was, how evenly matched they always were.

They get home, and Mickey finds some leftovers in the fridge for his and Melly’s dinner, and he feeds her and then puts her in her crib even though it’s earlier than her usual bedtime, and he goes and sits on the couch.

He sits on the couch, and his head is swirling and buzzing and it’s like a thousand voices are all talking at once but none of them are making any sense.  He brushes his fingers against his lips, over and over again, like that will somehow remind him that it’s _real,_ that he _really_ kissed Ian this afternoon, that the proof is somehow embedded in his skin.  None of it seems real and all of it seems _too_ real and Mickey doesn’t have a fucking clue what to do about it.

He loses track of time, and only realises that when it’s late into the night, and there’s a knock at the door.  He groans quietly when he hears it, stays where he is on the couch; whoever the fuck it is will go away soon enough, he can’t deal with anything else right now.  A few moments pass in silence, and he thinks he must be safe.

Then, more knocking.  Louder this time, more insistent.  Mickey hesitates for a second more, tries to _will_ whoever it is to leave him alone, but the knocking just carries on and all that happens is his head starts to hurt from scrunching it up in concentration.

He runs his hands over his face, waits one more desperate second, but the knocking carries on.  Finally he gives in.  Stands up off the couch in one quick harsh motion, stamps over to the door and tugs the chain off it quickly, ready to fight whoever’s on the other side.  It’s probably one of his fucking neighbours complaining that they can hear Melly breathing or something, maybe the landlord chasing up the rent – either way, Mickey’s fully prepared to serve up a beat down.  After the day he’s had, he’ll enjoy having something to hit.

When he yanks the door open, mouth already opening to tell whoever’s behind it to fuck off, he isn’t met with his asshole landlord or the grouchy old guy who lives on the floor below. 

Because on the other side of the door is Ian.  His fist still raised from where he’d been hammering on the door just a moment earlier, his brows furrowed together and his jaw set, his coat unbuttoned and falling off one of his shoulders, twisted, like it had been thrown on in a mad hurry.  His chest is rising and falling quickly; he’s out of breath.  For a second, just from looking at him, so is Mickey.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Mickey asks, but his throat is dry and his heart isn’t in the dismissive tone of the words.  Ian looks at him, and the look is deep and blazing hot and Mickey can’t look away, can’t even breathe.

And then Ian says, “I wanna finish what we started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	18. Chapter 18

“I wanna finish what we started.”

Ian’s voice is low and deep, and it goes straight to Mickey’s cock.  Mickey tries to think of something to say back, something snarky or sarcastic or even outright hostile, but his whole body seems frozen, all he can think all he can see all he can feel is Ian’s dark gaze trained straight on him.

Ian takes a slow step forward, then another, forcing Mickey back into the apartment.  Mickey stumbles a little over his feet as he moves back, not wanting to look away from Ian but not wanting to get too close to him either.  If they get close enough to touch, Mickey’s not quite sure what he’ll do, but he knows whatever it is will drive him crazy for maybe the rest of his life.

Except Ian doesn’t seem to be giving him much choice about getting close.  He kicks the door shut behind him when he’s inside the apartment, and then heads straight to Mickey, crowding him against the wall.  Mickey gulps hard as his back hits the cool wall and Ian doesn’t stop moving.  Doesn’t stop moving until their bodies are only atoms away from touching.  All Mickey would have to do is shift forwards the tiniest bit, and they’d be pressed together, head to toe.  Mickey feels like he’s going fucking crazy.  A tiny movement, and his dick could be pressed up against Ian’s dick.  His lips could be pressed against Ian’s lips.

He stays still, though.  It’s Ian’s turn to make a move.

And Ian does.  He brings his hands up, and rests them against the wall, one on either side of Mickey’s head.  Mickey’s heart is going crazy, his blood pumping around his body in double time, every inch of him pulsing and tingling, his dick growing harder by the second just from _looking_ at Ian.

Ian leans in, the tiniest bit, his breath dancing across Mickey’s face.  Mickey can see every single fleck of colour in his eyes, the tiniest hints of blue that creep into the green around the edges, can see how blown his pupils are, the way water is gathering just around the edges because he’s refusing to blink.  Mickey’s never stared into Ian’s eyes this close before, not for this long. 

The moment he thinks he can’t stand the tension any longer is the exact moment Ian kisses him.

God.  God and Jesus and fuck, a thousand times fuck, it’s better than it had been that afternoon, when they were full of anger and surrounded by people and not sure what they were even doing.  It’s better than that, and it’s worse, and Mickey doesn’t even know what to do.  He sucks in a deep breath and brings his hands up to Ian’s face, cups his jaw with one hand and grasps his neck with the other, pulls him as close as he can.  Ian’s lips move against his softly, slowly, but with enough passion that Mickey feels actually fucking weak at the knees.  Ian sucks on Mickey’s top lip, and Mickey lets out a fucking _whimper,_ can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed by it because this is _everything_ he’s been needing, been wanting, since he first saw Ian again that day in the diner.  Maybe even longer – maybe for two fucking years.  Maybe longer than _that,_ because this is something new, they didn’t have this before even when they had something similar, and maybe _this_ is what Mickey’s been wanting all along.

The kiss is soft and slow, until it’s not.  Until Mickey shifts just that little bit closer to Ian and their dicks press together through their jeans.  It sends a shot of fire through Mickey’s whole body – he’s so fucking hard, and he can feel that Ian is too, brings one of his hands down from Ian’s face to grab at his ass, pulling their hips even closer together and moaning as Ian rocks into him.  All of a sudden the kiss changes, is hotter and more frantic, full of teeth and sloppy tongue.  Mickey tightens his grip on Ian’s ass, rocks against him, thinks that he might be two seconds away from coming even just from _this._

Apparently, Ian has other plans, because just when Mickey’s decided to give in and jizz in his pants like a teenager, Ian grabs Mickey’s hips tight and stumbles backwards, away from the wall and properly into the apartment.  Mickey takes the opportunity to push Ian’s jacket off his shoulders, managing to break Ian’s grip on him just long enough to discard the thing altogether, as they remain locked at the lips.  When the coat’s gone, Mickey pushes Ian’s t-shirt up too, digging his fingers hard into Ian’s perfect fucking abs, grinding against Ian even harder as they break the kiss for just a moment so Mickey can force the shirt up off Ian’s head.  It gets stuck on one of his arms and half-off his head, and Mickey laughs a little, breathless, as Ian twists around, trying to shake it off.  When he’s free, Ian pulls Mickey’s t-shirt off, too, in one quick motion, and then they’re kissing again, stumbling backward through the apartment, panting and laughing into each other’s mouths.

They hit the wall next to Mickey’s bedroom door with a thud.  Ian breaks away for a second to laugh harder but Mickey draws him straight back into the kiss, crushes his lips against Ian’s so hard he thinks it might bruise.  He scrapes his teeth across Ian’s bottom lip, grinding against him with increasing speed as he reaches one hand out to fumble with his door handle.  He _needs_ to be in a bed already, to have Ian on top of him, pressed against every inch of his body, pressed _inside_ his body.  Fuck.  He rocks against Ian faster, and the door swings open.

And then, two seconds before they can stumble inside and Mickey can _finally_ get the release he’s fucking craving –

A cry from Melly’s room.

Mickey freezes for a second, then pulls his lips away from Ian’s.

“Shit, fuck, shit,” he pants, his eyes still closed, forehead resting against Ian’s.  He listens for a moment longer, hoping against hope that maybe it was a false alarm, that the noise was one of his kitchen appliances malfunctioning, or maybe the whiny cat from across the hall - but no such luck.  Another much more distinct cry comes out from Melly’s room, and Mickey groans.  He takes one deep breath, trying to stop the shaking that’s taken over his whole body, and tugs hard at Ian’s hair, finally opening his eyes.  “You,” he says, not letting himself be distracted by how fucking _delectable_ Ian looks when he’s flushed and freshly kissed and only half dressed. “You, get on my bed, now.  I’ll be in as soon as is humanely fuckin’ possible.”

He manages to untangle his fingers from Ian’s hair, then palms Ian’s dick through his jeans for good measure before forcing himself to step away, to not look back at Ian because it’ll drive him fucking _crazy._ He stumbles into Melly’s room and flicks the dim little light on; she’s stood up in her crib, face scrunched up and damp with tears, hands gripping onto the bars, straining to get out.  Mickey squeezes his eyes tight shut for one long second.  Sometimes, she has nights where she gets fussy, isn’t hungry and doesn’t need her diaper changed but won’t go to sleep regardless, will do nothing but cry unless he holds her in his arms and walks around the apartment with her all night.  Usually he doesn’t mind too much, so long as it’s making her happy he can miss a few nights’ sleep, but _fuck._ Tonight?  Tonight, if she’s having one of those nights, he thinks it might _actually_ be the tipping point to finally convince him he’s genuinely cursed.

His dick’s already gone soft, he realises with resignation, and begins to cross the room to pick Melly out of her crib.  Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling him not to hook with Ian or something – maybe it’s for the best.  Thinking it’s for the best is the kind of thought that makes Mickey want to cry, but still.  He can handle it.  Maybe the timing’s just not right.  It’s definitely not _practical,_ even Mickey can recognise that, because he’s got the kid and Ian’s finally in a good place in his life, Ian needs some kind of stability and the one thing their relationship never had was _stability._ So maybe it’s for the best, because if they hook up tonight, Mickey isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to stop again.

Of course, every single one of those thoughts goes flying straight out of his head when he trips over Melly’s teddy bear on the floor.  _Fuck._ She’s knocked it out of her crib, that’s why she’s crying, she can’t sleep without the fuckin’ thing, he’s not gonna need to stay up with her after all.  Mickey stumbles and nearly hits his head on the side of the crib in his haste to scoop up the ratty old bear.  He plonks it into Melly’s crib quickly, no time for the usual theatrics he’d offer in this kind of situation to amuse her, just holding his breath to make sure that’s enough to comfort her.

It is.  As soon as the bear is in the crib, she sits back down, stops crying, and Mickey watches her for just a second more to make sure that she’s going back to sleep before he fucking _races_ out of her room, making sure to shut the door tight behind him, and into his own.

Where he’s met with possibly the most glorious sight to ever grace the earth.  Ian Gallagher, casually stretched out on the bed, completely naked, arms raised to pillow under his head, his cock sticking straight up into the air like a beacon, guiding Mickey home.

“Took you long enough,” Ian says.  Mickey has to force himself to remember how to breathe.

“Fuck you,” he replies, which is so unoriginal he thinks it might as well be his catchphrase at this point, but his brain is a little too fried to think of anything clever and it gets a laugh out of Ian, anyway.

“You gonna get over here or should I start without you?” Ian asks after another long moment, and that’s all Mickey needs to hear to kick start his brain again.  In a second he’s racing towards the bed, pulling his jeans off as he goes, tripping over the hem and stumbling into the edge of the mattress.  He decides to just go with it, and lets himself fall on top of Ian, pressing the whole length of their bodies together.   The feeling of Ian’s dick against his, even through his boxers, is enough to draw a moan from his lips before he can help it.  He stifles it by leaning down and pulling Ian into a kiss, long and wet and deep, sucking on Ian’s lower lip and grinding their hips down together, running his hands over every inch of Ian’s bare skin that he can reach.  Fuck.  _Fuck,_ Mickey has missed this more than even he knew until right now.

“Boxers,” Ian pants, when he manages to pull their lips apart for a second.  Mickey knows what he means, wants more than anything to be naked, to have Ian’s dick up his ass already, but it’s been so fucking long and he doesn’t want to stop rocking their hips together for even a second.  Ian seems to get that it’s gonna be a problem, because that’s when he wraps his arms tight around Mickey’s hips and flips them over, pins Mickey to the bed.

“Fuck, okay, get them off,” Mickey says, his voice low and cracking.  Ian shifts down the bed a little, half sits up, and Mickey lifts his hips so Ian can pull the boxers off.  The moment they’re off, he expects Ian to be pressed back against his dick, _needs_ it, but instead Ian sits back between Mickey’s legs, pushes them apart, and, looking almost curious, brushes his fingertip across Mickey’s asshole.

A choked moan escapes from Mickey’s throat.  Ian laughs slightly, seems to take that as a cue to continue.  He produces some lube out of fuck knows where – he must have brought it with him because Mickey doesn’t keep any around these days, doesn’t have a reason to – and squirts a liberal amount onto his fingers, tossing the tube off the bed when he’s done and immediately bringing his fingers back against Mickey’s ass.

Mickey moans when Ian finally presses a finger inside him.  It burns just a little, but in a good way, a way that only makes the heat rush to his dick, makes him even harder than he had been before.  Ian isn’t gentle, and he doesn’t go slow, he slips another finger inside Mickey almost straight away and Mickey arches into the touch, then a third and Mickey feels so fucking _full_ he can hardly stand it, can only think about how long it’s been since he’s done this with anything but his own fingers, how bad he fucking needs it.

When Ian pulls out his fingers Mickey nearly screams at him – he feels _empty,_ on edge, his whole body humming and needing Ian’s touch.  But then Ian produces a condom out of presumably the same mythical place he’d gotten the lube, and Mickey feels okay again, because Ian’s fingers are always great but Ian’s _dick_ is incomprehensibly, immeasurably better.  Ian takes forever opening the condom packet, rolling it slowly down his dick, jerking himself off a couple more times for good measure, then sitting back and checking he’s got it on completely right.

“You gonna sit there admiring your handiwork all fuckin’ day?” Mickey asks, and while his voice is breathless he thinks he still conveys an adequate amount of sarcasm.  Ian rolls his eyes.

“I know ten seconds is a long time to wait for my dick, but you could at least _try_ to play it cool.”

Still, Ian takes the hint and gets moving, shifting on top of Mickey so his dick is just pressing against Mickey’s ass, getting ready to push inside.  And Mickey wants it so _fucking_ bad he might explode, but he can wait an extra moment, because after Ian’s teasing, he has a different idea.

He grabs Ian by the hips and rolls him over onto his back in one quick motion, then climbs on top, straddling Ian’s hips.  He sees Ian’s eyes darken, and has to laugh; Ian always did get _so_ fucking turned on when Mickey took control.  He takes hold of the base of Ian’s dick with one hand, settles just above it, pressing the very tip into his ass.  But he doesn’t sink down any further.  He just stays there for a few long seconds, longer than Ian had spent fussing around with the condom, and laughs at how obvious it is that it’s driving Ian _crazy_.

“Cool enough for ya?” he asks, smiling wickedly down at Ian.  Ian seems incapable of speaking, but raises one hand up and smacks Mickey in the chest.  Mickey takes the hint, and, fucking _finally,_ sinks down onto Ian’s dick.

When his ass is flush with Ian’s hips, Mickey has to stop for a moment, pulling in a deep, shuddering breath and adjusting to the feeling.  He doesn’t stop for long, though, every inch of his body thrumming with a desperate kind of need.  He wants to savour every moment of this, to remember each second, but he doesn’t have enough self-control to take it slow.  It feels so _fucking good,_ and he sets a brutal pace, rocking up and down on Ian’s dick so fast that his thigh muscles start to burn.  Ian grips Mickey’s hips tight and thrusts up off the bed to meet Mickey each time, pushing his dick as far in as he can.  The mattress is squeaking underneath them but Mickey can barely hear it over the sound of his own blood pumping around his body. 

Panting, he runs his fingers over Ian’s chest, then leans down a little more and sets his hands on either side of Ian’s head, staring into Ian’s eyes.  He’s about to reach down for a kiss, but as he thrusts himself down onto Ian’s dick, the new angle means it grazes against his prostate, sending a rush of electricity through his whole body.  He lets out a choked moan, hips faltering as he tries to keep Ian’s dick in that _exact_ spot.

“Oh _fuck,”_ he cries out, clenching his fists in the sheets and squeezing his eyes tight shut.  “Fuck, man, right there, oh, shitting _fuck_ right there.”

He knows he’s babbling but he doesn’t care, doesn’t care about a single thing in the world so long as Ian’s fucking him like this.  He wriggles around on top of Ian, trying to keep the pressure on his prostate as long as he can, mumbling another string of cursewords as his whole body heats up, his dick _throbbing_ with pleasure.  Ian’s laughing at him in a breathless, disbelieving kind of way, but he wraps a hand around Mickey’s dick anyway, starts jerking him off quick and rough, in time to his thrusts.

" _Mickey,"_ Ian moans, quiet and low, and their eyes meet and all of a sudden that's  _it._ Before Mickey knows what’s happening he’s gasping in a deep breath, slamming himself down onto Ian’s dick one last time, and shooting come all over Ian’s chest, without ever looking away from Ian's eyes.  His whole body tenses for a moment, hands desperately scrambling at the sheets and Ian’s shoulders, back arching into Ian, reaching down to press his open mouth against Ian’s, bite at his lips in a barely-kiss as his dick pulses and his ass squeezes down around Ian’s dick.

Ian tips over the edge just a moment later, digging his nails into Mickey’s hips so hard Mickey thinks it might actually be drawing blood, moaning loud into Mickey’s open mouth.  Ian fucks into him a couple of last hard, desperate times, his hips stuttering against the mattress, and then collapses down, pulling Mickey with him.  Mickey takes a few deep, panting breaths, suddenly feeling calm and totally relaxed, and kisses Ian’s lips gently.

Then he rolls off the top of Ian, and over to the side, collapsing onto his back with a contented sigh.  After a moment of contemplation, he turns his head to stare at Ian, who is throwing the used condom off the edge of the bed – it lands with a _squelch_ somewhere on the floor but Mickey doesn’t think about how gross that is – and is sweaty and flushed and rumpled and just _incredibly_ fucking gorgeous. 

He only stares for a moment before letting out a quiet laugh – he just can’t actually _believe_ his life right now, but he knows it’s impossibly good – and shifting so he can rest his head on Ian’s bare chest.  He’s bone tired and pliant in that way he only gets when he’s just been well fucked, so he doesn’t even try and fight his urge to snuggle into Ian’s side, just flings an arm across Ian’s waist and smiles.  Ian runs one of his hands through Mickey’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.  Mickey thinks if he was a cat, he would _definitely_ be purring right now.  He then thinks how fucking sweet it would be to be a cat.  He then thinks he’s probably about to fall asleep.

“Oh, shit,” Ian mumbles suddenly.  It feels like the greatest fucking effort Mickey’s ever made to raise his head off Ian’s chest and blink his eyes open, but he does anyway because Ian sounds concerned.

“Wha’s wrong?” Mickey asks, propping himself up on one elbow and reaching over to the bedside table for a cigarette.

“Nothing, I just, uhh –” Ian pauses, ruffles his hair thoughtfully.  “I’m supposed to take my pills the same time every night, but I forgot to bring them with me.  Didn’t really think about how long this would take.  It doesn’t matter, though, I’ll just skip it for a night.”

Mickey lights his cigarette, takes a long drag.

“Like fuck you will,” he says around the smoke as he exhales.  “Those things are important, man.  I remember you moaning shit to me about when your mom went off them.”

“I’m not my mom,” Ian says, jaw suddenly set hard.  Mickey rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, okay, whatever you say.  Doesn’t mean you can just skip your fucking meds, though.  Go back to your place and get ‘em, it’s only down the block, I don’t think the walk’ll kill you.”

There’s a moment of silence, where Mickey smokes and stares at Ian, and Ian stares back at Mickey, a strange and unreadable expression on his face.  If Mickey didn’t know better, he’d say Ian looked _hurt._

“Fine,” says Ian, rolls over and out of bed, grabs his jeans and hops into them without looking back at Mickey.  Mickey only takes a moment to appreciate Ian’s ass before he frowns, wonders why Ian’s suddenly in a huff.

“Yeah, and then we can go for round two,” Mickey adds, because he can.

Ian turns around.  Smiles.

And, oh.  Mickey watches Ian pull on his shirt, and thinks about the fact that times were he’d kick Ian out as soon as they were done.  That’s not what he’s like anymore, though, him and Ian are _different_ now, Mickey doesn’t have a fuckin’ clue what they are but he knows it’s different.

Ian climbs back onto the bed and kisses Mickey, hard and too quick, before he goes out to the living room to hunt for his shoes.  Mickey smiles so hard his face hurts, finishes his cigarette, tries not to think about anything too hard.  Sometimes, he’s beginning to learn, life can actually be _good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)
> 
> so i never leave proper notes in here but i'm making an exception bc this is the smuttiest thing i've ever written and i'm really nervous about posting it? so any comments would be extra appreciated on this one, i hope it was okay idk


	19. Chapter 19

The next morning, Mickey wakes up with his face shoved into Ian’s armpit.

He’s lying on his front, awkwardly twisted and half on top of Ian, who’s sprawled out on his back.  One of Ian’s legs is hanging completely off the side of the bed; Mickey’s right knee is wedged into Ian’s crotch.  They’re both completely naked, covered only by the twisted sheets, which Ian is totally hogging, leaving half of Mickey’s ass exposed to the cold air.  Ian’s drooling a little in his sleep.  His breath smells fucking terrible – worse than his armpit, which Mickey groggily removes his face from.

Mickey isn’t quite sure he can actually _contain_ all his happiness.

He’d be happy to stay there forever with Ian, to make his home in that bed and not leave for anything.  But, unfortunately, it’s a day where he has to work.  And even if it wasn’t, he can hear Melly shouting from the next room; as if his actual alarm clock wasn’t enough to wake him, she knows her routine far too fucking well, he could set his watch by her.  So he takes one last, long moment to savour the feeling of being awkwardly tangled up with Ian, then drops a kiss to Ian’s shoulder, extracts his limbs, and pulls on a pair of sweatpants, getting ready to face the day.

His first order of business is, as usual, Melly.  He leaves Ian sleeping and heads to her room.  Kisses her good morning, changes her diaper, gets her dressed, obediently has a conversation with her teddy bear when she starts hitting his chest with her little fists.  When they’ve done all that, they head out of her room, in the direction of breakfast.

Right at the same moment as Ian emerges from Mickey’s room, wearing his t-shirt and a pair of Mickey’s boxers, blearily rubbing at his eyes.  They spot each other in the same second, both freeze simultaneously, stood only a foot apart and just _staring_.

“Eeeeeen!” cries Melly happily, her face curving into a smile, and she sticks her arms out until Mickey swings her towards Ian so she can pat his cheeks and laugh.  Ian looks slightly bemused, but happy.  Mickey didn’t even know Melly knew Ian’s name, let alone was so fucking in love with him, but he knows he shouldn’t really be surprised.  The Ian Gallagher charm has infected far more resistant souls than hers.

“Uh, I was gonna make coffee,” Mickey says, and then wants to hit himself because wow, could he have said _anything_ dumber? “Want some?”

Melly’s bashing her fists against his chest, which he knows is the sign to put her down.  He plonks her to the floor and she crawls off in the direction of the sofa.

“Coffee sounds great,” Ian replies.  They stand there for a moment longer, staring at each other, neither quite sure what to do.  What they fuck is going on, what they _are_ now, what’s okay.  This is uncharted territory.

When Mickey heads to the kitchen, Ian follows.  Sits at one of the crappy wooden chairs that pass as Mickey’s kitchen furniture.

Mickey doesn’t look at him as he brews the coffee.  He keeps one eye on Melly, who’s gnawing happily on a wooden spoon, and the other on the microwave, where he’s heating her up a sachet of instant oatmeal.  When the coffee’s done, he fills up a chipped green mug that Mandy made in a middle school art class, hands it to Ian.  Then he sits Melly up at the table, and feeds her the oatmeal as he drinks his own coffee.

It’s the most surreal thing he’s ever experienced.  Ian doesn’t say much, just watches Mickey and Melly, drinks his coffee, looks contemplative.  Mickey doesn’t know what to say, either, is feeling more awkward than he knew it was physically possible to feel.  After every sip of his coffee, he rubs his thumb across his bottom lip, trying to think of something to say.

“So, I have to get to work,” Ian says, eventually, the first one to break their strange silence.

“The bar’s open this early?” Mickey asks, incredulous.  Melly spits a mouthful of oatmeal down her shirt, and giggles.

“Nah,” Ian replies, standing up and walking over to put his dirty mug in the sink.  “I work a day shift every Wednesday at the diner.  Y’know, the one Mandy works at?”

Mickey nods.  He’s never actually been to Mandy’s diner, but she’s described the whole place in such colourful detail that he could probably draw a map of it, as well as write up psychological evaluations of every employee.

“Yeah, I gotta get to work, too,” Mickey says.  He thinks, maybe, for a second, they could walk out together or something, but Ian’s already fishing his coat off the ground where it had been flung last night, and Melly’s still trying to get her bowl of oatmeal on top of her head.  They’re at pretty different stages in their routine.

“So, uh, I guess I’ll see you?” Ian says, before he heads to the door.  Mickey watches him shift his weight from foot to foot.  Neither of them will quite meet the other’s eyes.

“Yeah, man,” Mickey replies, because what the fuck can he _say_ to that? “Soon.”

He feels like he should kiss Ian goodbye or something, _wants_ to kiss Ian goodbye, but doesn’t, because he’s so fucking confused about what’s going on.  By the time he could have even worked up the courage to consider it, Ian’s waving to Melly and heading out the door.

And that’s that.

\--

Mickey leaves not so long after Ian does, with Melly on his hip and the gym bag filled with her shit slung over his shoulder.  Their walk to the store is quick – twice as long as it should be because Melly keeps insisting on stopping to inspect weeds that are sprouting up from the cracks in the sidewalk or interesting-looking bugs, but still quick.  They get there, and he sets Melly up in her usual spot behind the counter, and opens up the store.

It’s one of the rare days he wishes he had any other job than this.  Sitting behind a counter in a store that doesn’t get much business is hardly demanding.  It leaves him plenty of time to do his own thing.  Which is fine, usually, great even.  Except that today Melly’s being well behaved for the first fucking time _ever,_ playing quietly by herself and sleeping intermittently, which means there’s nothing to distract him.

And when there’s nothing to distract him, all he has to do is think.

And all he really has to think about is – well.  Basically, _Ian._

Mickey’s more confused about where they stand than he’s ever been.  They’d had basically the best sex of their entire relationship, twice, and Ian had stayed over, they’d fucking _cuddled_ in bed, it was weird and uncomfortable and amazing and it had to _mean_ something.  But Mickey has no idea.  Maybe all this was just a one time thing.

People do that, right?  They hook up with their exes?  People booty call their exes all the time, he’s pretty sure, he _is_ sure.  But those people aren’t him and Ian.  And their version of ‘ex’ is a little different to most people, because of everything that went down, because they never actually even got a chance to be properly _together_ before they broke up, and because of the _way_ they broke up, because it was kind of neither of their fault but also both of their fault at the same time.

He tries to think about whether he _wants_ it to be a one-time thing.  The part of his mind that is still, after all these years, _so_ fucking good at lying to itself says 'yes'.  Yes, this would be better if it didn’t happen again, yes this is impractical and dumb, _yes, I’ve moved on_.  But every other inch of Mickey’s head and heart and body screams _no,_ screams that he wants Ian over and over again, always.  And he’s not really dumb enough that he can’t figure out which one of those things is the truth.

So the problem, then, is whether _Ian_ wants it to be a one-time thing.

As he rings up a litre of Gatorade and a box of condoms for a bored-looking girl who keeps fiddling with her nose ring, his eyes keep flicking to his cellphone underneath the counter.  He could so easily call Ian, text him, say _hey man let’s talk about last night,_ actually fucking say out _loud_ all these thoughts that are driving him crazy.  It would be so simple.  It would be _smart_.

Except, if he does that, he runs the risk of finding out that last night actually _was_ just a booty call, to Ian.  He runs the risk of Ian laughing at him, telling him to get over it, telling him it was no big deal.  If Ian doesn’t want a fucking _relationship,_ Mickey thinks he would be happy to be just another one of Ian’s fuck buddies, in a way, because at least then he’d be getting _part_ of Ian.  But what if Ian doesn’t even want _that?_

By the time nose-ring girl has left, he’s decided not to text Ian.  By the time clearly-underage-but-still-trying-to-buy-cigarettes kid enters, he’s un-decided that, and is working up the nerve to call.  Once he’s kicked that kid out, it’s all indecision again, until empty-bottles-and-food-stamps guy comes in, and Mickey re-decides to keep quiet.  If Ian wants to see him again, _Ian_ can make the first fucking move.

Between deciding that and his shift being over, he drafts eleven texts to Ian.  But he doesn’t send any of them, so really, it kind of feels like keeping his promise to himself.

Except after his shift is over, he still has fucking _hours_ to kill until the actual end of the day where he can go pass out in his bed and try not to smell Ian on the sheets and maybe get some _reprieve_ from his own fucking thoughts.  He can’t go to Mandy’s place like he usually does when he’s bored or trying to avoid something these days, because Mandy’s place is Ian’s place and _that’s_ just the opposite of helpful.  So he goes home, sits on his living room floor and tries to convince Melly to play a thousand different games, none of which she seems interested.  Of course the one day he actually needs a distraction, his kid decides to become the model of Zen, only seems to want to nap and talk quietly to her teddy bear.

His phone is lying on the floor next to him.  Every three seconds his fingers itch towards it, but he forces himself to stop.  He might be desperate, but Ian doesn’t have to know that. 

He’s just finished giving Melly her dinner and is thinking he should probably feed himself, too, when there’s a knock at the door.  He’s actually fucking grateful for it, will happily fight with his asshole landlord or put up with the nattering of the crazy lady across the hall if it means a distraction.  He sets Melly down on the sofa, and crosses to the door, already making bets with himself on who it’ll be, how long he’ll be able to keep them there.

When the door swings open, he thinks for a moment that he’s jumped back in time to last night.  Because standing on the other side is Ian.

Only this time his coat is buttoned up and he’s wearing a hat and scarf, doesn’t look like he just flew out the door at a moment’s notice, and he’s holding a brown paper bag in his hand, which is emitting a pretty distinctive smell that Mickey recognises from the Chinese takeout place down the street.

“Hey,” says Ian.

“Hey,” says Mickey back.  He feels awkward, unsure what the fuck is going on, and it’s tense but not in the same way as it had been the night before.  This kind of tense is better and worse all at once.

“I, uh, got takeout,” Ian says next, like that wasn’t obvious.  “It’s dumb.  I can go?”

“No,” says Mickey, too quick, then clears his throat and tries again.  “Nah, man, stay.  I haven’t eaten.”

Ian’s face breaks out into that hundred-watt smile that Mickey would fucking _kill_ for, and he steps past Mickey into the apartment, throwing the takeout onto the counter and shrugging off his coat.

“That whole bag is full of egg rolls by the way, I know how you feel about them,” he jokes, and Mickey laughs, because three fucking years ago he’d told Ian he hated egg rolls and he’s never lived it down, and because Ian still _remembers_ that, after all this time.

“Better be joking or I’m kicking you out again,” Mickey replies, grinning as he sits down at the table.  Ian rolls his eyes, follows.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he says, his grin positively _wicked,_ and Mickey’s breath catches in his throat for a second.  It’s true.  If he had his way, Ian would never fucking leave, ever again.

Maybe that’s a tall order.  But Ian does, at least, stay that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	20. Chapter 20

Mickey is ninety five percent sure he and Ian are dating.

Maybe ninety percent. 

They don’t talk about it, and they definitely don’t define it, but they’ve kind of picked up where they left off all those years ago.  They fuck and they hang out, they fuck and they hang out, they hang out and they fuck.  The only real differences are that now, a lot of their hanging out includes Melly, and they kiss more than they used to.  But they don’t do coupley shit, and they don’t tell anyone that they’re together, let Mandy figure it out for herself and everyone else think what the fuck they like.

And Mickey’s – well, Mickey’s kind of fine with it all, kind of more than fine because it means he gets to kiss Ian and fuck Ian and hang out with Ian, which is really all he’s ever wanted.  But at the same time, it’s confusing as fuck.  He has no idea if they’re on the same page – doesn’t even really know what page _he’s_ on.

\--

Weeks pass, and they seem to define themselves in drips and drabs.

\--

“So, uh, I broke things off with Scott,” Ian says one night, when Mickey emerges from Melly’s bedroom after putting her to sleep.  Ian’s sat on the sofa, staring down at his phone, not meeting Mickey’s eyes, sounding like he’s trying too hard to be casual.

“Your douchebag booty call?” Mickey checks cautiously, heading over to join Ian on the couch.

“Yeah,” says Ian.  “I mean, I was never that into him, I didn’t see him much.  But yesterday I told him we couldn’t fuck anymore.”

Ian doesn’t offer any more explanation than that, but it makes Mickey feel better regardless.

\--

Then, a few days later – they’re at Ian’s place, eating takeout with Mandy, and they finish eating, and Ian has sauce on his lips.  Mickey doesn’t think about it for a second, just leans over and kisses him, runs his tongue over Ian’s mouth until he’s kissed away all the sauce.  When he pulls back, Mandy looks like she might either laugh or have a heart attack.

“So you two _are_ together?” she checks.  Mickey holds his breath, turns to Ian, waits for Ian’s response.  It seems kinda shit to have his relationship status told to him because his _sister_ asked, but at this stage he’ll take what he can get.

Of course, Ian’s a little shit, so he just laughs, ruffles Mickey’s hair, doesn’t say a word.

\--

Melly is what makes things most difficult.  Mickey doesn’t exactly mind it, _can’t_ mind it because she’s his fucking kid and he loves her even though she’s a pain most of the time, but it’s never exactly convenient.  He can’t really go out, except on the few times he can get Mandy to babysit.  But they make it work.  Ian stays over at Mickey’s place most nights, doesn’t seem to mind too much that they can only really _do_ anything when Melly’s asleep.

One night when she is and they’re fucking quick and quiet in Mickey’s bed, stifling their moans in each other’s skin, Ian laughs into Mickey’s neck and says, “It’s just like old times.”

Mickey can’t concentrate with a cock filling up his ass, hisses at Ian to shut the fuck up and _get on with it,_ but later, when they’ve both come and are curled up around each other under the sheets, Ian’s breathing starting to mellow out, his eyes drooping – then, Mickey thinks about it.  Thinks about years gone past, about when they’d fuck in Mickey’s room and they’d both be on edge the whole time, a chair pushed up against the door to try and block anyone trying to come in, but they both knew it wasn’t much of a lock.  They’d be fucking so quick it almost wasn’t fun, just trying to get off and get dressed and part ways before the wrong person could catch them and it would all come crashing down.  The whole fucking time their bodies would be tensed from more than just the sex, tensed ready to run or fight at a moment’s notice if they had to, never really fully letting go.  Now, Mickey’s got his own fucking apartment, and they have to be quiet so they don’t wake the baby, but it’s not _dangerous._  If they were loud, if Melly did wake up, the most it would be is annoying.  They can do whatever the fuck they want, now.

It’s not like old times.  Mickey is so fucking glad of that he could cry.  And Ian’s sprawled out on the bed next to him, taking up way fucking more than half the space, his arm flung across Mickey’s stomach, his leg resting on top of Mickey’s legs, his deep breaths tickling Mickey’s neck.  And Mickey’s fucking _happy._

\--

It’s a Tuesday night, and there’s a storm outside, rain lashing down from the dark sky and battering the windows.  It’s cold outside, but it’s warm in the apartment, even warmer in the bed, twisted up under the sheets with another hot body writhing against this.

Ian’s been torturing him, prepping him for so unnecessarily long that Mickey’s about ready to explode, his cock resting heavy and swollen against his stomach, his feet digging into Ian’s back.  When Ian finally, fucking _finally_ pushes his dick in, Mickey sinks his teeth into Ian’s neck to keep from yelling.  He’s so hypersensitive that he thinks he might come after two seconds, just from the fullness of Ian’s cock inside him.  Ian holds still inside him for a long, torturous moment, before starting to properly thrust.

So, of course, that’s when Melly starts screaming from the other room.

Mickey can’t even react for a moment, just squeezes his eyes right shut, and then groans, feels like he’s about to cry even more than her.  Still, he knows she can’t help it, so he pushes Ian away, rolls off the bed, and pulls on the first pair of sweatpants he sees on his floor.  He doesn’t look back at Ian in case he loses his resolve altogether and officially wins the _worst father of the year_ award, which he’s been saving for his own dad and hardly wants to share.  When he gets into Melly’s room, she’s stood up in her crib, bashing her fists against the sides and crying.

Her bear and pacifier are both still in there, so that’s not it.  With a sigh, he pulls her out of the crib and sets her on his hip.

“Muk,” she says between cries, clinging onto his shoulder. “Muk, muk, muk.”

He closes his eyes for one long second, and resigns himself to the fact that he’s probably _not_ having an orgasm tonight.  ‘Muk’ means milk, which means Melly’s hungry, which means he’s gonna be up with her for a while.

She’s wriggling in his arms, kicking her legs against him and digging her fingers into his shoulder as he makes his way into the kitchen.  Without setting her down, he gets a bottle out of the fridge, sticks it into the microwave, heats it up, tests it, then hands it to her.  She latches onto it happily, gripping it with both hands and immediately starting to drink.

Mickey begins to pace around the living room, bouncing Melly gently in his arms as she drinks, trying to soothe her back to sleep.  With any luck, she’ll drop off as soon as she’s finished it, and he can get Ian’s dick back up his ass before the night is over.  He mumbles to her as she drinks, not saying much, just _I wonder what aunt Mandy’s doing right now_ and _how’s the milk you’re drinking pretty slowly_ and _how long d’you think it’ll be til you learn to clean up after yourself?_ But he knows his voice always soothes her, and that combined with the milk and the walking should hopefully be enough to send her back to the land of fuckin’ nod.

He’s been pacing around with her for maybe fifteen minutes when he turns around and sees Ian.

Ian’s leaning on the doorframe of the Mickey’s bedroom, dressed in his t-shirt and a pair of Mickey’s boxers, staring at Mickey and Melly with a soft look in his eyes.  He must have gotten bored waiting for Mickey to come back to bed, come out to see what was taking so long.  Mickey’s torn, for a moment.  Nobody’s ever seen him with Melly like this.  In the middle of the night, comforting her, talking to her.  It feels strange, like Ian is seeing _inside_ of him somehow, seeing something he would never have thought he’d want anyone to see.  But then, if there’s anyone he’d ever want to see him at his most vulnerable, it’s Ian.

Their eyes meet from across the room, and it’s a moment of inexplicable intensity, Mickey gets a lump in his throat and he can’t even think, he wants to cry just from looking into Ian’s eyes.  He’s known he’s in love for a while, he thinks, but this the first time he can feel it through his whole body – and this is the first time he’s aware of how fucking much Ian could still _break_ him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	21. Chapter 21

A month later, Mickey notices Ian’s toothbrush in his bathroom.

For a moment after seeing it, he just stares blankly, not quite sure why it’s odd.  It’s early in the morning - _too_ early, he’s still rubbing sleep out of his eyes and everything’s taking him a second longer to process than it usually would.  So when he glances down at the toothbrush mug on the edge of the bathroom sink, at first he can’t quite figure out what’s wrong; the almost used-up toothpaste with the missing cap is sat in there, and so is his plain green toothbrush, and the pink dinosaur one he uses to scrub Melly’s baby chompers.  But there’s another one stood next to them, a blue-and-white one that Mickey doesn’t recognise.  For a second, Mickey wonders if he’d bought another toothbrush for some bizarre reason and then forgot about it, or maybe if Mandy had bought one round for Melly to play with, like that’s the kind of thing kids are interested in.

Then Ian stumbles sleepily into the bathroom behind Mickey, picks up the new toothbrush, and sticks it in his mouth.  So the mystery kind of solves itself.

\--

Mickey doesn’t mention it, but as soon as Ian leaves for work, he begins to take careful stock of his apartment.  All his shit’s still there, but he begins to notice other things, things which don’t belong to him.  Ian’s socks are on the floor, and Ian’s favourite disgusting healthy cereal is in the cupboard behind the Lucky Charms, and there’s a postcard from Lip in Mickey’s living room, _Greetings from Toronto, little bro, where the weather's cold but the chicks are hot, and apparently really into engineers_.  It’s all – _bizarre,_ is what it is.  Mickey doesn’t remember having a conversation where he said Ian could leave his shit all over the place.  And it doesn’t matter, Mickey doesn’t _mind,_ in fact he almost kind of loves it.  But still.  He feels like this is something he should have known about beforehand.

He goes back into the bathroom and checks in the medicine cabinet.  Along with baby aspirin, band aids, rash cream and Mickey’s deodorant, Ian’s deodorant is sat in there, too.  But there’s no sign of Ian’s meds.  Clearly _they_ are one thing Ian’s regulated to his own apartment.

Mickey doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.  He settles on a healthy mixture of both, and goes to mix marshmallows into Ian's healthy cereal.

\--

That night, Ian’s waiting outside the store when Mickey leaves work.

“Hey,” says Mickey, surprised - he'd thought Ian was picking up an afternoon shift at the bar and wouldn't be done for a couple more hours.  Ian’s just leaning against the wall, texting, but he looks up at the sound of Mickey’s voice.

“Hey,” Melly echoes happily, which makes Ian grin.  Ian shoves his phone into his pocket, and leans over to kiss Mickey hello, then pulls away and kisses the top of Melly’s head as well.

“You get a sudden craving for bad convenience store food?” Mickey asks, though he already knows why Ian’s there, of course. "I gotta warn you, the last guy who ate a donut from this shithole died."

Ian doesn’t even dignify that with a response, just knocks his shoulder against Mickey’s as they start walking.

On the way back to Mickey’s apartment, they chat.  Of course, their chatting quickly descends into bickering, because Ian thinks they should order Chinese and Mickey’s fucking _sick_ of Chinese because it’s the closest takeout place to them so that’s where they _always_ order from, but Mickey doesn’t want pizza, either.

“Stop being fucking _difficult,”_ Ian moans, rubbing Melly’s arm where she’s smushed between their bodies from her place on Mickey’s hip.

“I’m not being _fuckin’ difficult,_ I just think there’s gotta be more than two types of food we can eat, Jesus.”

Melly makes a couple of loud noises which could either be agreement or protest, and squirms in Mickey’s arms, trying to grab onto Ian.

“Start throwing out some suggestions and I’m all ears, asshole,” Ian says, grabbing Melly under the armpits and swinging her into his own arms.  Mickey takes the opportunity to reach over and straighten out her jacket so it’s actually covering a significant portion of her body instead of just being scrunched up around her chest.  He totally _doesn’t_ use that to stall for time so he can think of a suggestion to wipe the smug fucking look off Ian’s face.  If inspiration strikes him during his pause, it’s just a happy coincidence.

“ _Indian,”_ he says, trying to mask the triumph in his voice with annoyance.  “There’s an Indian place, like, four blocks away, dickface.”

“That place sucks,” Ian says, shifting Melly in his arms so he can properly glare at Mickey.  “ _You_ suck, I still want Chinese, I don’t even know why I fucking put up with you.”

Of course, he doesn’t seem to mind when Mickey wraps an arm around his waist and drags their bodies as close together as they can get.

They end up ordering Indian, but Ian complains loudly the whole time, even as he’s happily stuffing his face with tandoori chicken.

\--

The next week, Mickey looks in the medicine cabinet again, and finds Ian’s meds have appeared.  Three little orange bottles, neatly lined up on the top shelf.  He reads the complicated scientific names but he doesn’t understand them, so they go straight out of his mind again.  What _does_ stick is the fact that they’re unmistakeably made out to _Ian Clayton Gallagher._

Mickey can’t stare for too long, because Ian wanders into the bathroom to take a piss.  So Mickey just grabs the deodorant he’d gone into the cabinet for in the first place, and decides not to think about it too much.

He wants Ian around, after all.  In a way that feels like a new concept – he’s not used to admitting it, and it’s a little strange to accept.  But at the same time, it feels like the oldest tale in the whole fucking book.  He’s always wanted Ian Gallagher around as much as he can manage.

And he knows Ian doesn't have spare meds lying around, so this is basically an admission of what they both already know - that Ian doesn't have much of a reason to go back to his own apartment, anymore.

Which Mickey is enthusiastically fine with.

\--

“Ian, what the _fuck?_ You put all the CDs back in the wrong cases!  How are we supposed to find anything?  Are you insane or do you just have no fuckin’ respect for the order of the universe?”

\--

“Mickey, I swear to god, if you are seriously considering wearing socks during sex right now I will _punch you in the face._ There’s no way I can get a boner with you naked except for your fucking tube socks!”

“Gimme a break, asshole, it’s _cold.”_

\--

“If you are seriously trying to get me to watch the fucking _sound of music_ right now, Gallagher, I’m gonna cut your dick off.”

“Dickbrain, I thought Melly would like it.  And you’d never do _shit_ to hurt my dick, you like it too much.”

\--

“Mickey, do you even know _how_ to fold a shirt?  Because what you call your wardrobe is really just a drawer full of dirty, scrunched up clothes, and a couple of gone off candy bars.”

\--

"Are you seriously playing Flappy Bird while I'm trying to give you a blowjob?  Melly only naps for a half hour, man, we have a  _limited window here._ You gonna show some interest or should I take my business elsewhere?"

"Hey, I was already playing, you're the one who got down on his knees mid-level!"

\--

"Mick, your feet smell."

"Ian, your face smells."

"Wow, I didn't realise we were reverting to middle school, should I whip out some  _your mom_ jokes?"

\--

Mickey’s drinking coffee in Mandy’s kitchen when he hears Melly crying from the other room.  He lets his eyes drop shut for a second - it seems like ages since he's seen his sister, so he's taken the chance to spend some quality time with her while Ian's working a double at the bar.  He's  _hoped_ it would be relaxing or some shit, but of course, Melly's chosen this day to be the fussiest she ever gets.  She's teething, so he understands why she's pissed, but still.  He's kind of sick of it.  He hasn't even gotten laid in three nights, because she cries the second he tries to leave her alone in her crib.  And now not even Mandy, who she adores, is enough to distract her.

“Dada!” she’s saying, over and over again, and he sighs as he sets down his coffee and heads back over to the couch.  _Da_ is Melly’s favourite nonsense word, and she uses it to talk about pretty much anything – though it's actually been a couple of months since Mickey heard it, since she's started learning to talk properly and hasn’t been using her babbling so much.  He sees Mandy trying to figure out what she’s actually asking for – offering her a drink and a piece of apple and a myriad of toys, but nothing seems to be working.  “Dada, da da da, dada!”

It’s not until she spots Mickey that Melly stops crying.  She crawls over to him quickly and latches onto his legs, still sniffling a little, rubbing her nose in his jeans.  He bends over and swings her up into his arms, wandering what the fuck she was talking about.  Only –

“Dada!” she says again, happily this time, and buries her face in Mickey’s neck.

And Mickey.

Fucking.

_Melts._

“Guess she finally figured out what the word means,” Mandy says, and there’s something off about the tone of her voice but Mickey can’t spare a second to analyse it.  He knows, logically, that Melly might not _really_ know what _dada_ means, that she might still just be babbling – but Mickey’s caring less and less about logic these days, and he _feels_ like it means something, and that’s a big fucking deal.  It’s – it’s _crazy,_ and he doesn’t know to handle it.  All these months, he’s been calling looking after Melly _parenting,_ but he’s still never quite thought of himself as her _parent._ She has two of those, which is all he really thinks anyone needs, even if they’re shitty and absent.

But maybe, he realises, as Melly cuddles into him and he buries his face in her fluffy hair, it’s time to rethink his definition of _dad_.  His role in her life is going to be permanent – at least he wants it to be, hopes it will be.  He can’t imagine a world where piece of shit Tony wants her back when he gets out of jail, considering he hadn’t even remembered he _had_ a kid when he first got incarcerated.  And Mickey never got the full story with her mom, but he’s heard a little more the last few months, through Svetlana, who’s been talking to Iggy, who knows the vaguest amount about it.  It sounds like Melly’s not gonna get missed by her maternal force, either.  Which makes Mickey, basically, the most stable presence in Melly’s life.

And that – that means he’s got to set a fucking _example._ It hits him, all of a sudden in one world shattering moment.  He’s gonna be her best example of how to live, of how to love.  His relationship with _Ian,_ it’s gonna be everything she knows for a long time, unless Mandy beats the odds and finds a guy who isn’t a total piece of shit.  Even then, him and Ian will be the _main_ contributors to Melly’s world. 

He has a responsibility to Melly, he realises.  And that freaks him the fuck out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	22. Chapter 22

Melly takes her first steps on a Wednesday.

The timing, unlike the timing of pretty much every other event in Mickey’s life, is perfect.  It’s just after dinner, when they’re all sat around in Ian’s apartment, and Mickey’s waving a teddy at her from a few feet away, and Ian’s already filming the whole thing on his phone, because she’d been doing something cute a moment ago.  She pulls herself up on the edge of the table and takes five tottering but determined steps towards Mickey, grabs at the teddy, and then collapses into his lap.

Mickey scoops her up into his arms and begins to smother her with kisses.  Ian’s laughing and still filming it, but Mickey’s too damn proud to care.

For the rest of that day, everything’s euphoric.

\--

The next morning, though, it’s not.

\--

It’s just something small.  It’s morning, and they’re sat around Mickey’s kitchen table eating breakfast, and Ian makes some snarky remark about how Mickey drinks way too much coffee.  Which – that shouldn’t be a big deal, that kind of bickering is just what they _do,_ but ever since the other day with Mandy, Mickey’s been way too hyper aware of every single thing he does that could be considered _setting a bad example._ So when Ian calls him an asshole who’s gonna die of heart disease, even though he’s smiling and ruffling Mickey’s hair at the time, Mickey’s first reaction is to shoot a nervous glance at Melly.

He tries to think of a way to respond that won’t end up in one of their silly little arguments, but can’t.  He can’t respond the way he usually does – calling Ian a dickface, pointing out that he drinks just as much coffee as Mickey does.  But he can’t exactly call Ian out on the comment, either, because Ian will think he’s been brainwashed by fucking aliens or something.  After all, when has Mickey Milkovich ever turned down a fight, even a cutesy playful word-based one?

So instead of responding, he just grunts awkwardly and pretends to be absorbed in feeding Melly her oatmeal, until Ian leaves for work.

Mickey breathes a sigh of relief as soon as the door shuts behind Ian, and gives Melly a fake smile that hurts his cheeks.

He’s not sure what he’s gonna do about this, but he knows he has to do _something_.

\--

At work, while he rings up bags of junk food for stoned teenagers and tries to get Melly to take more than a couple of steps at a time, he thinks about Ian.

Which wouldn’t be unusual, because Ian’s pretty much _all_ he thinks about, Ian and Melly and occasionally Mandy make up the entirety of his small but ultimately amazing world.  Except today, he’s not thinking about how happy Ian makes him, and that’s what makes it different.

Today, he’s thinking about all the _shit_ they’ve gone through.  
  
And a lot of it, he knows, wasn’t their fault.  Maybe _all_ of it wasn’t their fault, in the end.  But Mickey know that doesn’t mean they’re perfect, and he can’t help thinking about the ways they’ve _reacted_ to the bad shit that’s happened.  He knows he has a tendency to shut down, to lash out, to essentially White Fang people.  And Ian’s only slightly better – Ian has a tendency to run, when he can’t deal with something.  And maybe that means they’re perfect for each other but in a lot of ways it also means they’re _toxic._

Bar Melly, Ian’s the best thing Mickey’s ever had in his life.  But that’s exactly it.  _Bar Melly._ Melly’s more important that Mickey ever knew someone could be, somehow even more important than Ian, which just about floors him to realise.  And he doesn’t want his tumultuous shitstorm of a relationship with Ian to _ever_ affect her.  Putting her through all that drama – for all he knows, it could _seriously_ mess her up.

All day, he’s distracted, just thinking about that.

“Something on your mind?” asks Julie, who’s stopped by to see Melly because she, just like everyone else, is in love with the kid.  Mickey can hardly even see her, he’s so distracted – her whole face is a blur, except her freckles, which seem to stand out in hyper-sharp contrast because they remind him far too much of someone else.

“Nah,” he lies, though his heart clearly isn’t in the words.  “I’m fine.”

She gives him an odd look as she swings Melly up into her arms.

“If you say so,” she says, and then adds in an exaggerated whisper, “Your daddy is a _weirdo_! Yes, sweetie, yes he is.”

Mickey looks at Melly, who’s giggling at Julie, her little button nose all scrunched up, and thinks about what he’s known for a long time now – that he could never do _anything_ to hurt her.  He doesn’t want to do anything remotely bad to her, even accidentally.

So he resolves to stop fighting with Ian.  At least, not in front of Melly.  It shouldn’t be that hard, he decides – it’s not like their entire relationship is built on arguments, after all, they have stuff in common, more than Mickey’s ever really had in common with _anyone_ , and they love each other, all that shit.

And it has to work, because it’s kind of the only way he can think of to fix things that won’t totally blow up his world.

\--

For the first couple of days, every time Ian makes the kind of jokey comment that could lead to a fight, Mickey just tries to respond calmly.  It goes against every instinct in his body, he has to fight just to keep himself in check, but he manages it, just about.  Ian gives him a weird look every single time – he knows it’s unnatural for Mickey to ever pass over a chance to swear at someone.  Mickey’s reminded of the many, many reasons dating someone who actually _understands_ you can come back to blow up in your face.

Still, Ian doesn’t mention it, just lets Mickey back down or change the subject from every single thing.  Only – only Mickey _hates_ it, even after only a few times.  It feels like there’s some weird power imbalance going on, because Ian’s still acting the same, but Mickey’s just backing down at every turn.  And Mickey doesn’t like feeling powerless.  So he just keeps getting more and more annoyed, until he can’t keep it up anymore, starts snapping back at Ian without being able to stop himself.  It just ends up turning their bickering into actual _fights,_ which is kind of the opposite of what Mickey had wanted in every single way.  On the second night of Mickey’s resolution to stop arguing, the two of them go to bed angry, after fucking in a way that feels more like passive-aggressive fighting than anything else. 

Mickey decides to scrap plan A before he has a nervous breakdown.

So, since peaceful resolution doesn’t seem to be working, Mickey starts with the silent treatment.  Not all the time, of course – that’s just another example of unhealthy that he doesn’t want to wave around in front of Melly.  But whenever Ian says one of his throwaway teasing comments, the kind that would usually lead to a few minutes of playful bickering and inventive name calling, Mickey just.  Doesn’t respond.

When Ian’s washing the dishes and says “You’re such a dick, you only keep me around ‘cus you like having a housewife,” or when he’s sat in front of the TV and says “Next time you hide the remote on purpose I’m gonna punch you in the throat,” or when he’s balls deep in Mickey’s ass and says “Jesus fucking Christ you’re being way too chatty tonight, shut the fuck up” – Mickey just ignores him.

Which seems like a good idea, except for the fact that it totally, completely just makes things worse.

\--

It’s only two days later that Ian brings it up.  He’s just made some other dumb comment, and Mickey’s ignored him, in his attempt to make things _better._ And it blows up in his face the next second.

“Why the fuck are you being such an _asshole_?” Ian cries.  It startles Mickey so much that he drops the bottle of juice he’d been taking over to Melly, cursing as it splashes around his feet.

“The fuck you talking about?” he asks, in a hushed voice as he shoots a concerned glance at Melly.  She’s sat on the floor by the couch and they’re in the kitchen, and she _seems_ to be playing happily enough, but he doesn’t want to take the chance that she’ll overhear any yelling.

“The last couple days,” Ian says, setting down the mug he’d been holding with a _thud_ on the counter and gesturing towards Mickey.  “I keep saying shit and you just straight up _ignore_ it.  Act like you didn’t even hear me, but I _know_ you did.  What, you mad at me for something?  And decided to solve it by giving me the fucking silent treatment?”

Mickey takes one long, deep breath through his nose.  He knows Melly can hear Ian’s voice, anger and swearwords and all, and _all_ he wants to do is yell back, because this is how him and Ian _talk,_ but he can’t – he _can’t,_ he literally can’t fucking stand the thought that he would ever do to Melly what his own parents did to him all the fucking time, which is make her feel _scared._

“I’m just _trying,”_ Mickey whispers through gritted teeth.  “To not fu – _freaking_ fight with you all the time.  Okay?”

For a moment, Ian looks startled.  Then his jaw sets and he leans closer, shoves Mickey lightly in the chest.

“And you thought the best way to do that was _ignoring me_ all the goddamn time?”

“Not all the time, asshole!” Mickey says, his voice rising before he can help it.  “Just when you say shit that sounds like it’s leading into an argument!  Which, as it turns out, is way too fucking often, because all you ever do is start shit!”

“When in the last week have I _remotely_ tried to start shit, Mickey?”

“Not – not _shit,_ not in a big way, but just, like, all the little comments, the little things you say – the stuff that makes me want to talk back – I just don’t wanna fucking _bicker_ my whole life away, alright?”

“Well fucking excuse me, I didn’t realise you were so _unhappy_ ,” Ian fumes.  He moves away from Mickey and grabs his coat off the couch, pausing to kiss Melly on the head before stalking over to the door.  “I think I’ll sleep at my place tonight.  Call me when you grow a fucking brain.”

Ian’s out the door before Mickey can say another word.  Sighing, Mickey presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, tries to figure out what the fuck went wrong _there._

When he looks up a moment later, Melly’s staring at him in confusion, her toys long forgotten. Mickey realises too late that he’d slipped back into his old role, yelling at Ian, not talking things through like the adults they’re _supposed_ to be.

As he heads over to give Melly an apologetic hug, he realises that he knows what the problem is.  It’s pretty simple.  This kind of – this kind of fire, this kind of _passion,_ it’s never gonna leave his relationship with Ian.  They’re built on conflict.  And that doesn’t mean they can’t be happy together – they’re both screwed up enough that it’s almost the opposite, they almost _need_ that, and they’re definitely never gonna find it better with anyone but each other.

But it does mean they can’t be happy together _and_ be good to Melly.

When Mickey realises it, his heart heads straight through the floor, and he has to sit down quickly on the couch because his head is spinning and he thinks he might be sick.

He realises that he has a choice to make.

\--

That night, after Melly’s gone to sleep, Mickey lays in bed, stares at the ceiling, and thinks about his own parents.

Terry and Melania, a match made in hell.  They were married and procreating as teenagers when they thought they were something like in love, stuck in mutual hatred for decades after that.  He’s only two years older than they were when they got married.  Ian’s only one.  And already their relationship has been built around lies and anger and jealousy and mistrust and a base longing too intense for either of them to bear.  They’ve hid together and fought together and broken together, and in a way, their being back together now feels like the closest thing to fate Mickey could ever believe in.  If it weren’t for Melly, he’d be falling back to Ian no holds barred, like he’s always wanted to, like he’s always felt he _needed_ to.  He’d be tumbling head first into that crazed, sickening, soul destroying kind of love which has always made Ian Gallagher special.

If it weren’t for Melly.

It’s just that – Mickey’s parents.  They’d been cruel to each other in a way him and Ian never were, and maybe it had been obvious they didn’t love each other, which, Mickey thinks, is not something that can be said of him and Ian lately.  But still, it was – the fighting, and the constant tension, and the unpredictability of it all, the way one day his parents could be curled up on the couch getting high together and giggling like teenagers, and the next his mom would be smashing a plate over his dad’s head.  It messed him up, he knows that.  And with him and Ian, it’s different, but it’s not different _enough_ , and he doesn’t want to put Melly through that.

 _Can’t._ Can’t put Melly through that.

Mickey’s suffered enough fucking tragedy for ten lifetimes, but he knows that’s never meant it’s gonna stop.  He’s tough.  He’s lost Ian before, and he can do it again, if it’s for Melly.  He thinks it’s worth his own unhappiness, if it means she might get to experience the world from the mind of someone at least mildly functional and unscarred.

Maybe one day she can tell him what it’s like.

\--

Mickey breaks up with Ian on a Wednesday.

He goes over to Ian’s apartment to do it.  Dumps Melly with Mandy for a second, heads into Ian’s room; Ian’s changing his shirt, and he jumps when he spots Mickey, looks shocked for a second, before his face breaks out into a grin, the kind that hurts Mickey’s heart on a fucking _good_ day.

“Hey,” says Ian, through his smile.  “What are you doing here?”

Mickey already feels ready to cry, has to swallow around the lump in his throat to even get the words out.

“I don’t think we can do this anymore,” is what he says.

For a minute, everything is blurry.  Mickey doesn’t remember their words, doesn’t remember their actions – he just remembers that Ian’s confused, at first, but then he’s just plain _crushed,_ when he realises what’s going on.  He looks like his whole fucking world is crumbling.  Mickey recognises the look, because it’s exactly how he feels.  But he _needs_ to do this. 

He tries to explain.  He doesn’t want to lie – not about this, not about something that’s gonna hurt them both so fucking much, he wants Ian to know it’s for a _reason._ But he feels like no explanation he gives can explain it properly, can explain how he’s _feeling,_ which is more hurt than he’s ever been, but more _strong_ than he’s ever been, too _._

“Look, man, fact is,” he says, through his broken voice, while Ian’s stuck for words, “whoever’s in _my_ life right now is in Melly’s life too.  I know nobody really thinks I’m that good of a dad, whatever, but fact is I _care_ what happens to her and I don’t wanna screw her up for life.  If we _do_ this, you’re basically committing to raising a fucking _kid_ ,Ian, and there’s just no fucking _way_ we’re ready to do that.”

“Why not?” Ian asks, something desperate in his voice, taking a couple of frantic steps towards Mickey.  “Why can’t we be ready for that, Mick, I mean I know we’re young but _you’re_ doing it, and I just wanna be with you, okay, and I _love_ Melly, I don’t see what the fuck is wrong with us at least _trying._ ”

“You remember how it was with us, man.  How it _still_ is.  All that crazy drama, the on-and-off shit.  I could handle it before, when it was just me, but – we fight all the time, about dumb shit that doesn’t even matter, we throw each other around and we yell, even when we’re just messing about, and I just don’t want her thinking that’s how a fuckin’ _relationship_ works.  We both know what it’s like having parents that shitty, parents who fight all the time – I don’t _want_ that for her.”

“Mickey,” Ian says.  His voice is pleading and hurt, and it reminds Mickey of two years ago, of Ian saying _would you at least look at me, you love me and you’re gay, if you give half a shit about me don’t do this._ Ian starts to say something else, but it’s in that same voice and Mickey can’t handle hearing what it is.

“This ain’t a discussion,” Mickey snaps, cutting him off, and his voice comes out harsh but the tears are still blurring his eyes so much he can hardly even see where Ian is.  “We’re over, man.”

He leaves Ian’s bedroom before Ian can say another word, grabs Melly without saying anything to Mandy, even though he knows the walls in here are thin and she probably heard the whole ordeal and she’s looking at him with these betrayed fucking eyes, like _that’s_ all he needs.  With Melly cuddled tight to his chest, he leaves their apartment in silence, only the sound of his heart beating too loud in his ears to keep him company.

He holds the tears back as he walks down the block, but as soon as he’s in his own apartment, he stops fighting and lets them fall.  Keeping hold of Melly tight, he drops down onto the couch, buries his face in her hair, and lets himself _hurt._

His heart is broken – that much there’s no denying.  But in a way, he also kind of feels _happy_.  He’s never thought of himself as a good person before.  Having Melly – being a fucked up kind of _parent_ , only in a way less fucked up than any other parent he’s ever known – it makes him feel like he might be doing something useful to the world.

He can live with his own pain, so long as she’s gonna be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	23. Chapter 23

Melly learning to walk may just be the worst thing that’s ever happened to Mickey.

At least, that’s what he tells himself, over and over, to avoid thinking about the _actual_ worst things, the genuine fucking horrors he’s endured.  That’s what he tells himself to avoid thinking about the ridiculously Ian-shaped hole in his chest, these days.  Two weeks have passed since since he last saw Ian, and Melly's walking is the worst thing in his life.  That's what he tells himself, as he scoops Melly up around the middle and carries her, away from the cabinet where she’d just been dangerously close to opening a bottle of bleach. 

She’s wriggling and babbling and protesting in his arms, and as soon as he sets her down in the living room, she’s off like a shot again towards the kitchen.  He groans, closes his eyes for one long second before he heads after her.  She's already out of view.

“Get back here you little shit,” he mumbles, as he tries to figure out which cabinet she’s in this time.  He knows he should child-proof, but until recently, it hasn’t been an issue.  She’s been crawling for months, but never shown much interest in using the skill, content to move around as little as was needed, occasionally retrieving a toy from a few feet away or following him when he’d try and walk into another room without her.  He hadn’t realised how fucking lucky he was until she’d taken her first steps; apparently this is a much preferred method of motion, because she hasn’t _stopped_ moving since she first figured it out.

If he’s honest, maybe her timing isn’t the worst.  It’s kind of – not nice, but, well, _appreciated_.  It’s convenient to have something filling up his time right now.

He doesn’t miss Ian.  He tells himself that, over and over.  He does _not_ miss Ian.  He doesn’t get sad when any redheaded customer comes into the store; he doesn’t have to swallow hard every time he notices the freckles dusted across Melly’s little nose; he doesn’t look away whenever he sees something with a camo pattern; he doesn’t walk a longer way to work just to avoid passing the bar where Ian works.  Nobody can prove _anything._

He finds her trying to shut herself inside a cabinet full of food.  Could be worse, he supposes, as he picks her up and tickles her stomach, trying to get her mind off exploring all the nooks and crannies of their apartment.  He’s bored of chasing her, so he swings her around in the air for a while, listening to her screeching giggles.  It’s cute.  He doesn’t feel like he smiles much, these days, but she’s always the one thing that can get a grin on his face.

After a little while of that, she seems tired out, and he figures she might actually sit still for a while.  He collapses onto the couch and plonks her on the floor by his feet, nudging a couple of the toys which litter the carpet towards her.  She picks up her battered green teddy and seems amused enough by it, so Mickey lets his head fall onto the back of the couch, closes his eyes for a second.  He feels so fucking tired.

He – well, basically, he’s not an _idiot_.  He knows.  He misses Ian, and he knows it.  He misses Ian so much it hurts like a gunshot every second of the day, so much he could fucking scream.  Fuck.  Pity it doesn’t change anything.

He keeps his eyes closed for a minute, just trying to breathe, trying to focus on all the good shit he still has, trying to focus on how everything’s gonna be okay.  He’s Mickey fucking Milkovich.  He’s been through worse than this, and he always, always manages to pull through.  He’s got Melly, now, too.  It’s not like before, when Ian leaving had stuck Mickey with _nothing._ He’s got Melly, who he maybe loves more than he’s ever loved anything on the planet.  He’s gonna be okay.

He opens his eyes, raises his head.  The first thing he sees is Melly sat on the kitchen floor, giggling.  The second thing he sees is the cord in her hands.

“No – Melly – _shit!”_ he calls out, leaping off the couch and racing towards her, but it’s too late.  She gives a big _tug,_ because she’s a shit starter if ever he knew one, and the coffee pot, which was admittedly balanced a little precariously on the edge of the counter, comes crashing to the ground, shattering in the same second that he scoops her up into his arms.

\-- 

Melly, because she’s got some crazy kind of fucked up luck no other Milkovich has ever had, is fine.  She has one tiny cut on her hand, and Mickey sticks a dinosaur Band-Aid over it and she thinks that’s the funniest thing ever, doesn’t even seem to notice she’s injured.

So, of course, she’s fine and he’s fucking happy and relieved about that, but he’s also coffeeless.  Which – _sucks_ , to be frank.  Between Melly’s newfound mobileness, her teething, and the melancholy tone of his own thoughts recently, he hasn’t exactly been sleeping well.  He’s been running off maybe fifty percent caffeine, forty percent sugary junk food, ten percent sheer stubbornness.  He’s gonna crash if he doesn’t keep that balance up.

So he braves the outside world, and heads to the coffee shop.

It’s a while since he’s been there.  For a while, he’d go every couple of days, just to drink the shitty coffee and get out his own apartment.  But after – everything, recently, the inside of his apartment has been more comforting, and he hasn’t much felt like leaving, _hasn’t_ really left except for work.  But coffee must be had, so he forces himself.  Dresses Melly in her ridiculous bright red onesie-parka, tugs on his own coat and gloves, and heads outside.

There’s a light layer of snow dusting the ground, but nothing compared to what he’s used to back in Chicago, so it doesn’t bother him.  Melly seems to find it funny, though she’s been in the snow before, but she insists on babbling like she’s talking to it, makes him put her down every few steps just so she can crawl around on a particularly snowy patch of curb.  He tries to resist, but she kicks her boots against his chest and screws up her face like she’s preparing to scream whenever she sticks her hands out and he doesn’t put her down.  It’s not worth the tantrum. 

Eventually, he bends over, holds her up by the hands, and lets her walk herself.  It’s slow going, because of her tiny fucking steps and the way she keeps stopping to inspect things, but at least she's having fun.  It's hardly the worst thing in the world that it takes them a half hour to reach the coffee shop.

When they finally get inside, Mickey scoops Melly up into his arms and goes straight to the counter.  He orders a large black coffee to keep him on his feet all day, a donut to give himself a sugar buzz, a plain bagel for Melly to tear up and throw on the floor and suck without actually eating any of it.

Then, when he turns around to head to a table, he finds himself face-to-face with Ian.

“Fuck,” he says, before he can help it, his voice coming out broken and quiet.  He blinks quickly a few times, tries to school his face into an emotionless expression, even as he watches the sadness painted all over Ian’s.  Ian's _face,_ which Mickey hasn't seen in weeks, which looks exactly the same as it did the last time they spoke, except with dark circles under the eyes and rumpled hair.  “Uh, hi.”

“Hi,” says Ian.  He sounds about as wrecked as Mickey feels.

“I always forget we live on the same block,” Mickey says, trying to lighten the mood.  It doesn’t work; Ian just nods awkwardly, and looks at Mickey with his huge fucking puppy eyes, and then Melly starts bashing on his chest and Mickey forces himself to walk away, go and sit down with his coffee and food.

This time, he doesn’t invite Ian to sit with them, and Ian leaves without buying a thing.

\--

Mickey’s never been more glad that he has a job which requires no effort.  Scanning barcodes and shelving soup cans and cracking his knuckles at potential shoplifters, while sometimes mind numbingly dull, is all he can really manage to do these days, with his whole brain consumed with the distraction of misery.

Julie, he thinks, has noticed this, because she seems to be stopping by a lot more during his shifts, playing with Melly but shooting worried glances at him the whole time.  And he likes Julie, a lot, they’ve gotten pretty close over the last couple of months.  But he still doesn’t really like the idea that she can sense something’s off about him – or that she’s making any _assumptions._

So in a way, it’s almost a relief when she brings it up.  It’s the day after seeing Ian at the coffee shop, and Mickey’s even more distracted than usual, so much so that it takes him a full minute to find the barcode on a box of animal crackers.  Julie’s there playing with Melly, as usual for when she stops by, but as soon as there’s a minute where the store is empty of customers, she makes her move.

“You okay?” she asks, leaving Melly to play by herself and leaning on the front of the counter, opposite Mickey.  “You seem distracted, the last couple of weeks."

“Shit, yeah,” he mumbles, rubs at his eyes for a second.  “I, uh – bad breakup.”

His voice cracks – it’s one of the few times he’s said _breakup_ out loud since it happened, and it’s not gotten any easier, not gotten any less painful to realise that really _is_ what he’s been through.  Her face turns horrifically understanding for a moment, and she leans a little closer.  He hopes she’s not gonna try and give him a hug or anything.

She doesn’t, but what she does is _worse._ One second she’s looking at him with her big, understanding eyes – and the next she’s leaning across the counter and _kissing_ him.

“What the fuck!” he cries, leaping off his chair and stumbling away from her.  She stares at him for a second, silent, before flushing bright red and covering her mouth.

“Oh – oh, _shit,”_ she says, then shoots a worried glance at Melly, who’s still playing happily beside the counter.  “That was totally inappropriate, wasn’t it?  You’ve just gotten out of a relationship, and I’m your boss, and -”

Mickey realises, with a sudden and enlightening comprehension, that Julie doesn’t _know._

“I thought Linda told you I was gay!” he exclaims, remembers what she’d said when they first met, that Linda had told her his _sob story,_ and what the fuck was that if not to do with Ian?  But judging by the way Julie’s eyebrows shoot up and her face immediately flushes an even brighter red under her freckles, he guesses not.

“No!” she cries back, a look of total horror moving onto her face.  “Oh _god,_ she told me that you’d been in love with someone who left, and about your nightmare family, and that you’d taken in a little girl who had nowhere to go, I just thought –”

“Well you thought wrong!” he snaps, but immediately feels bad for it - it’s not really her fault, after all, he’s hardly forthcoming.

“I just –” she says, hides her face in her hands.  “I just saw how good you were with Melly, what a good dad you are, and it made me like you, I guess.”

“Oh,” he says.  “Well.  Uh, I’m gay.  Really fucking gay.  So – sorry?”

“It’s okay,” she says, lowering her hands from her face and giving him a sheepish look.  “I’m really, uh, really sorry about that.”

“Yeah,” he says, awkwardly.  He sits back down on the stool behind the counter that he’d leapt off when she kissed him.

“So, this person you just broke up with was a guy?” she asks hesitantly.  She seems – she seems okay with it, not freaking out any more than her own embarrassment over the misunderstanding warrants.

“Bingo,” he replies.  And then, because his head is swirling and confused and still trying to process what just happened and not at all focused on what’s coming out of his mouth, adds, “Love of my fuckin’ life, as it happens.”

“And he broke up with you?” she asks, her eyes going wide and sympathetic and just about as heartbroken as he feels.  He clears his throat and looks down at a pen on the counter, picks it up and twirls it around just to have something to do with his hands.

“Nah, um, I – I broke up with him.”

It sounds even worse than it feels, saying it out loud.  Apparently Julie thinks so too – she’s silent for a few seconds, and when he finally looks up from the pen he’s toying with, her jaw is hanging open, her expression somewhere between confused and horrified.  For a few moments, they just look at each other.

Then, she slaps him around the head.

“Well that was a pretty dumbass move!” she says, but smiles a little.  He laughs before he can help it – surprisingly, it’s the least miserable he’s felt in a while.

“Yeah, well, I had my reasons though.”

“Bullshit,” she says, immediately.  “ _Love of your life_ isn’t exactly a phrase to bat around lightly, you don’t throw that kind of thing away.”

Mickey stares at her, wide eyed, for a moment.

“Maybe,” he concedes, staring down at his hands.  He just doesn’t have a clue, anymore, whether what he’s doing is right or wrong, if it’s hurting more than it’s helping.  It’s definitely hurting _him,_ more than he ever thought was possible.  But it’s Melly he’s concerned for, and it’s hard to tell, at this stage, whether she really _is_ gonna be better off in the long run.  He thought she would be.  _Thinks_ she _will_ be.  Fuck.  He doesn’t have a clue.

“ _Definitely,”_ Julie insists.  Her blush has calmed down a little now, and a little of the embarrassment in her eyes has been replaced with the determinism he’s used to seeing there.  “So.  What you gonna do about it?”

\--

After work, Mickey goes home and thinks about how fucking weird his life is.

Melly’s in a clingy mood that he’s never been more grateful for, so they collapse on the couch together, and he puts on one of her cartoons, lets her lie on his chest and watch it.  Before he knows it, she’s fallen asleep there, and he doesn’t have the heart to move her.  He stares down at her curly hair, her little chubby fist which is clutching at his shirt.

Sometimes he actually still can’t believe how much he loves her.  But lying there, he does think about the fact that even having _her_ isn’t making him miss Ian any less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	24. Chapter 24

The first time Mickey goes to the diner Mandy works at is because he’s avoiding her apartment.

He’s not exactly made a conscious effort to avoid the place before now, but it’s a bus ride away, and Mickey’s been pretty happy confined to his own little corner of Philly, hasn’t really ventured out into the other parts of the city much.  Still, he misses his sister – because of who she lives with, he’s only seen her a few times since he ended things with Ian, because he doesn’t think he could handle going to their apartment.  So apart from the few times she’s come to see _him_ , he and Mandy have mostly been communicating through sarcastic text messages, occasionally emailing each other links to cat videos on YouTube.  Which is all very well and good for a few weeks, but it’s been almost a whole month, and Melly’s starting to miss her aunt as much as Mickey is.

So, one evening they decide to brave public transportation, and take the twenty minute bus ride to the diner.

The place turns out to be just as shitty as he’d imagined.  The neon sign out front has a couple of letters missing, and the booth he sits at has what he’s pretty sure is an actual _blood stain_ on the seats, and Mandy’s wearing a ridiculous pink uniform that fits her wrong.

It’s still nice to see her. 

As soon as she spots him, Mandy calls out to her manager that she’s taking her break.  She brings over a cup of coffee for Mickey and a beaker of juice for Melly, and Mickey wrestles Melly into one of the broken high-chairs the diner offers, while Mandy takes a seat at their booth.

“Mah-dee!” Melly calls out happily, as soon as she spots her aunt.  Mandy grins, and presses a kiss to the top of Melly’s head.

“Good to see ya’,” she says, pulling a funny face that leaves Melly in fits of giggles.  Then she turns to Mickey, and looks a little more serious.  “You, too.”

“Yeah,” he says, around the sudden lump in his throat.  “Missed you, Mands.”

For a moment, they just smile at each other, before she tells him to stop being so sappy and then launches into a breakdown of everything that’s happened to her in the past week.  Mickey rolls his eyes, but sits there and drinks his coffee and listens to her, anyway.  It’s the happiest he’s felt in a while.

Except, just when he’s sipping at the last dregs of his coffee, he hears the diner door open, and an all-too familiar voice calls out, “Mandy!”

Mandy freezes, staring over Mickey’s shoulder, and Mickey’s stomach sinks.  He turns his head, and it seems like everything’s in fucking slow motion, only not the fun kind they have in movies. 

Ian’s stood there, looking way too fucking gorgeous, his cheeks pink from the cold, his hair ruffled and hanging in his eyes, his face wearing a half-hearted smile that’s still the most wonderful thing Mickey’s seen in a while.

When Ian sees who Mandy’s with, the smile drops away.

“Shit,” says Mandy, with her usual level of subtlety.  Mickey feels sick, and he can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but look at Ian.

“Never mind,” says Ian, his voice suddenly low and sad.  “We can talk later.”

He’s out the door again before Mickey has a chance to say a word.

For a moment, Mickey just keeps staring at the empty spot where Ian had been stood.  Then he turns back to Mandy, who’s watching him with an unimpressed expression, one eyebrow raised.  Mickey just shakes his head at her, and downs the last of his coffee.

\--

Mickey’s just walking down the street with Melly, minding his own business, when he turns a corner and finds himself face to face with Ian.

For a moment, their expressions of horror mirror each other.  Then Mickey forces himself to blink, clear his throat, look away before he get too stuck on staring at how beautiful Ian looks and can never leave.

“So she’s getting really good at walking, huh?” Ian says, quietly, staring down at Melly, who is clutching both Mickey’s hands but is, actually, walking by herself.

“Yeah,” says Mickey.  He feels like an idiot, doesn’t know what to say, what to do.  His whole brain is stuck on _Ian._

“Eeen!” Melly cries happily, which saves Mickey the trouble of coming up with something else to say.  Her voice brings a smile to Ian’s face, even if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and he reaches down to ruffle her hair.

“Hey, smelly Melly,” he says.  Mickey watches the two of them for a second, before it’s all too much, and he _has_ to get out of there before he starts to fucking _cry_ or something.  He scoops Melly up and balances her on his hip, gives Ian a nod, and keeps walking.

He doesn’t look back, but the urge to is so strong that fighting it makes him feel sick.

He misses Ian more than he knew it was possible to miss. 

\--

Mickey’s playing with Melly behind the counter at the Grab and Save when Ian walks in.

He’s holding his right hand up, clutching at it with his left, and as soon as he sees Mickey he asks, in a low and awkward voice, “Where are the band aids?”

A shot of worry hits Mickey in the stomach.  The thought of Ian being hurt – even the kind of hurt that can be fixed with band aids – is almost too much for him to handle.  He grips Melly close to his chest to calm himself down.

“Like, two steps to your left,” he tells Ian.  His own voice comes out just as broken as Ian’s had.

He watches as Ian walks over and fumbles to open up a box of band aids, peel the plastic off the back of a big one and stick it carefully onto the side of his hand.  He doesn’t look to be in much pain, but Ian’s always been good at hiding that stuff, so it doesn’t stop Mickey from worrying.  He watches for the tiniest grimace on Ian’s face, wondering what happened, if there’s someone he can beat up for this.

After a moment of gingerly smoothing the band aid onto his hand, Ian grabs the rest of the box and walks up to the counter.  His eyes are turned down, never quite looking at Mickey as he fumbles for his wallet.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to come in here,” Ian says, but it’s so quiet that it sounds like it’s almost more to himself than to Mickey.  “I hurt my hand right outside, though, I didn’t want to wait to patch it up."

He finally gets his wallet out and begins to root around for some change, but Mickey shakes his head.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he says.  He takes one hand off Melly to push the box of band aids back over the counter, towards Ian.  “On the house.”

For a moment, there’s silence.  Then, Ian puts his wallet away, and finally looks up to meet Mickey’s eyes.  Mickey feels a lump in his throat, squeezes Melly a little tighter.

“Thanks,” Ian says, quietly, and then takes the band aids and leaves.

And Mickey just sits there and thinks about the fact that he can’t believe how much the universe is pushing him and Ian together.  He knows he’s done some fucked up shit, but he doesn’t think that his karma’s bad enough to deserve  _this_ much pain.

\-- 

Mandy has made it obnoxiously clear that she thinks Mickey’s an idiot.

Every time they’ve spoken, she’s told him he needs to get Ian back.  Or – well, not always in so many words, though occasionally she does just come straight out and scald him for his decision making.  But most of the time, her needling takes the form of hints and eye rolls and sighs and pointed statements about Ian’s mood.

Today is no exception.  They’re in the crappy, tiny local park, pushing Melly on the swings and sharing a cigarette, and Mandy is sticking to a single topic of conversation that’s making Mickey’s eyes sting more than he’d care to admit.

“He won’t stop moping,” she tells him, matter of fact, and she steals the cigarette from between his lips.

“Who?” he asks grumpily, but it’s such an obsolete question that she doesn’t even dignify it with a response.  Of _course_ he knows who she’s talking about.

“Scott keeps calling,” she says next.  Mickey gives Melly another push and pointedly doesn’t look at Mandy.  “Calling and calling, the fuckin’ voicemail’s full again ten seconds after I empty it.  He’s been coming by, too.  But Ian won’t even talk to him.” 

Mickey tries to hide the secret stab of happiness that gives him, because he doesn’t have any rights to not want Ian to see someone else, anymore.

“That’s a big deal,” she insists.  “Because Scott’s hot as fuck.  Way hotter than you, even from, like, an objective, non-sisterly point of view.  And I walked in on them fucking more than once, so I _know_ he’s hung as all hell.”

“Good for him,” Mickey grumbles, and rips the cigarette out of her fingers.  She just rolls her eyes.

“ _Plus,”_ she continues, “He’s been kind of in love with Ian for ages.  He’s always wanted to be more, but Ian’s never even been interested, only wanted to fuck.  Scott’s been sending him fucking _flowers,_ Mickey, and Ian won’t even take his calls.  And Scott didn’t _do_ anything wrong.  He’s just the kind of guy who sends flowers.”

Mickey takes a drag of the cigarette, pushes Melly again, listens to her happy, squealing laugh, and wonders whether Mandy’s gonna reach a point any time soon, or whether she’s only even here today to make him feel like shit.  He wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter, really. 

“Have _you_ ever sent him flowers, Mick?”

Mickey bites the inside of his cheek, and throws the butt of the cigarette onto the ground.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who does that shit?” he asks.  She, once again, rolls her eyes.

“I’m just saying.  He’s so hung up on you that he’s ignoring a hot guy who treats him well.  And you’re not doing shit about it.”

Mickey just sighs, and ignores the squirming knot of hurt in his stomach.  He’s used to it, by now.

\--

That night, when Melly’s fast asleep, there’s a knock on his door, and Mickey opens it to find Ian stood in front of him.

He’s not even really surprised.

“We have to talk,” says Ian, but his voice sounds more like begging that demanding, and his eyes are wide and sad and tug at Mickey’s heartstrings so much that he just _can’t_ say no.

“Okay,” he says, voice quiet, and lets Ian in.  Ian heads straight to the couch and sits down on it, the same way he has a million times before, and Mickey hesitates for only a moment before following.  He pushes himself into the opposite corner of the couch from Ian, as far away as he can get, but it’s not far enough to keep the warmth of Ian’s presence from sinking under Mickey’s skin.  He doesn’t think he’s actually felt warm for a single moment since they broke up – it’s like sinking into a fucking _bath,_ and he hates that he never wants it to end.

“You know why I’m here,” Ian says.  It’s not totally true, though – Mickey’s too confused to know _anything_ right now.  Ian seems to realise that after a moment of Mickey’s silence, because he goes on.  “Mick – us being apart is bullshit.  I want you back.”

For a moment, Mickey closes his eyes.  His whole body feels _wrong,_ it’s almost nauseating to be in the same room as Ian but not be able to touch him, it’s draining his energy faster than he can handle.  When he opens his eyes again, they’re stinging, and Ian’s still looking at him.

“You know why we can’t do this,” Mickey says, his voice low and cracking with the effort of saying no to Ian _again._

“Mickey,” says Ian, his voice too soft, too open, too fucking _painful,_ it’s like it’s stabbing Mickey straight through the heart.  “If I thought this was about you not wanting me, fine, I’d get it, and I’d respect that and I’d go the fuck away.  I know I’m crazy, I know I’m not the best deal, I know I’m a lot to handle sometimes, and if you wanted to leave for _any_ of those reasons, I’d get it.  But that’s not what this is.  This is about you having some fucked up idea that just because we _fight_ we’re gonna screw Melly up or something, and I’m not ready to give up on us for _that_.”

“Well it’s fucking true!” Mickey shoots back.  “You know what it’s like to have parents like that, man, and I do too, and look how fucked _we_ are.  I don’t wanna put her through that, okay.” 

“We are _nothing_ like our parents,” Ian says, his jaw set.  “We fight, Mick, and yeah, in the past, we haven’t always had the best relationship.  But you know what – that doesn’t _mean_ anything.  What means something is that no matter how many times we fight, we _always_ make up.  You moved to fucking _Philly_ on a coincidence, to the same fucking block that I live on, the whole fucking _universe_ is trying to keep up together and it’s only you that’s keeping up apart this time.  We fight and make up, and horrible things happen and one of us leaves but we _always_ find our way back.  That’s _love,_ Mickey, I know we don’t say it but that’s what this is, and love is the _only_ thing that you need to show Melly.”

“Look, man, you can be happy with some other guy,” Mickey says, his heart wide open and bleeding and so raw that each one of Ian’s words touches it and stings.  “What about your ex, y’know, the douchey one, Scott.  You could – you could be with him or some shit, it would be better for you, man.”

“If you think I could _ever_ be with someone else, you haven’t been paying _fucking_ attention.”

Mickey feels tired, tired to his bones.  Mickey feels wide awake and jittery, buzzing, every one of his nerves alight.  Mickey feels crazy, and all he wants to do is kiss Ian, stop fighting all the thousands of laws of nature that seem to want them to be together just as much as he does.  Except – at this stage, he’s not sure if that would be _helpful._ Ian’s words are so, so important, but there’s so much shit they have to work through, some much more that needs to be said and done before things can be okay again.  They’ve tried skipping that stuff, time and time again, every time they’ve come apart they’ve seemed to fall back together without a _real_ conversation.  Just snippets.  Snippets of anger which they’d pretended said everything that needed to be said.

“Mickey, you’re being dumb,” says Ian.  He leans across the couch and grabs the back of Mickey’s head, forces their eyes to meet.  “I know you think you’re doing a good thing, but Melly’s not gonna be happy unless _you’re_ happy.  That’s all you gotta show her.”

And maybe, Mickey thinks, _maybe_ he's right.  Maybe they can make this work.

But they need to work through their _shit_ first. 

\--

In the end, they talk for hours, curled up on Mickey’s couch together.  They talk in a way they’ve never talked before, about the deepest darkest most intimate parts of themselves.  And Mickey thinks that Ian’s _seen_ all these parts of him before, sure, in reading between the lines and guessing from actions and all that shit, but he’s never really heard Mickey _talk_ about them.  Just like Mickey’s never heard Ian talk about much that matters, either, because he’s never really given Ian a _chance_ to before, whenever they’ve tried it’s always been in crazy situations where Mickey’s just needed to get the fuck out of there.  But now – now, he has all the time in the fucking world, and he spends it listening to Ian.

By the time things start to draw to a vaguely natural conclusion, it’s five in the morning, and the sun is coming up outside.  They’re both bone tired and drained of emotion, and Mickey’s cheeks are stained with tears he’d never admit to, and Ian looks like he might pass out at any moment.  Only – only things feel _good,_ and neither of them want to waste that on sleep.

Mickey knows they don’t have long until Melly wakes up, but he thinks they have long enough.  So, finally, with the sounds of the city waking up outside the window, Mickey leans in and kisses Ian.  It’s a slow kind of kiss, a kiss that feels like nothing, at first.

But it builds.  After a few long minutes of quiet and calm, it builds, until every ounce of longing Mickey’s felt over the last couple of weeks comes pouring out, and he’s biting at Ian’s lips, licking into Ian’s mouth, arching off the sofa and pressing himself as close to Ian’s body as he can get, drinking in the warmth he’s been missing all month, the warmth he can only ever get from _Ian._  

They start grabbing at each other’s clothes, pulling at shirts and zippers and jeans and underwear without breaking their kiss for more than a few seconds, rocking against each other with a growing urgency that’s setting Mickey’s whole body on fire.  It only takes them a minute to fling all their clothes away, and then they’re naked, Ian lying completely on top of Mickey on the couch, biting at Mickey’s lips and grinding down against him.  Mickey’s grabbing at every inch of Ian’s soft bare skin that he can reach, running his fingers over Ian’s back, his abs, his ass, stroking gently across his dick in a way that makes Ian shake against Mickey’s body.  Then –

“Shit,” says Ian, pulling back and resting his forehead against Mickey’s, fists clenched in Mickey’s hair.  “Shit, I didn’t think we’d get this far tonight, I didn’t bring any condoms or anything.”

It takes Mickey a moment to get his breath back enough to talk.

“Bathroom,” he manages to huff out, then leans back in to steal one more quick kiss from Ian’s lips.  “There should be stuff there, from before.”

Ian nods, and starts the torturous process of untangling their limbs enough for him to stumble to the bathroom.  Only he barely gets off the couch before he stops, turns to stare at Mickey, an awkward look in his eyes.

“Have you – I mean, since we broke up, have you – with anyone else?”

Mickey almost breaks his neck in the rush to shake his head, vehement.

“No,” he assures Ian, as quick as he can get the words out.  “No, fuck, ‘course not man.  Have – um, have you?  Because it’s totally fine if -”

“No,” says Ian, cutting him off.  “No, me neither.”

For a moment, they just grin at each other.  Mickey almost forgets he’s horny, because it’s enough just being this fucking _happy._ Of course, his dick doesn’t let him forget for too long.

“Condoms,” he reminds Ian.  The dopey look vanishes from Ian’s face, replaced by a more practical, if equally nice, smile.

“Right,” says Ian, and stumbles off to the bathroom.  Every second he’s gone is an hour too long, in Mickey’s opinion, but really he’s back within moments, already tearing the cap off the lube and squirting some onto his hands.  He tosses a condom onto Mickey’s chest, and then falls back on top of Mickey, waving his lube-covered hand in the air while he leans in for a kiss.

For a long second, they just kiss again, hard and bruising and filled with so much longing that Mickey can hardly even stand it.  But then Ian’s pulling away, and pushing one of his lubed fingers inside Mickey, drawing a choked moan from Mickey’s throat.

Ian wastes no time in prepping Mickey, and then wipes his fingers off on Mickey’s t-shirt – which is gross but the last thing on Mickey’s mind right then – rolls on a condom, and starts to press into Mickey.

“Fuck,” says Mickey, when Ian’s all the way in.  His voice comes out low and quiet, choked with emotion that he would be embarrassed about if it was anyone else.  But it’s _not_ anyone else, it’s _Ian,_ and that’s the most crazy amazing thing in the world, so he doesn’t give a shit.

“Yeah,” Ian agrees, smiling his dopey fucking smile for a moment before leaning down and kissing Mickey.  Somehow the need to hurry has been lost, now they’re finally joined, and this kiss is slower and sweeter than the others, so soft it drives Mickey crazy.  Without breaking the kiss, Ian starts rolling his hips, hitching Mickey’s legs further up around his waist.

They fuck like that, slow and gentle and passionate, grinding their hips together and never breaking the kiss, as the morning sun streams in through the drapes and paints them both with light.  Later, when they’ve both come, they just lay there and keep on kissing, as long as they can, until Melly wakes up and starts shouting from her crib.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mickeymilk.tumblr.com](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


	25. Chapter 25

Three months later, Mickey wakes up because of the light streaming in through the blinds.  He opens his eyes and squints at it for a second before mumbling out a “ _fuck”_ and rolling over, burying his head back in the pillow and pulling the sheets up over his face.  It’s too late, though; he’s awake. 

After a few wasted moments of trying to get back to sleep, he groans, and gets up.  Pulls on the first pair of sweatpants he can find on his bedroom floor, while blearily rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

It takes him a moment to realise Ian’s not there.  Doesn’t bother him, though – Ian’s probably gone back to his own place to get a change of clothes, or headed to work early, or gone for a run.  Ian as a person is pretty hard to keep tabs on; he does so much fucking _stuff._

Still shaking the last vestiges of sleep from his consciousness, he pads slowly out of his room and into Melly’s.  They don’t have much to do today, since it’s his day off, but he’s learned that it’s best to get her up at the right time and keep her in a routine anyway, or she becomes grumpy as fuck.  He reaches into her crib with his eyes still mostly closed -

\- and his hands latch onto nothing.

Confused, he blinks his eyes open and stares into the empty crib.  This has never happened before.  Now nearly eighteen months old, Melly can move around a lot and even walk a few steps by herself, but she’s never managed to get out of her crib – or, really, shown any interest in doing so, the lazy fucker that she is.  Mickey feels his heart leap into his throat for a moment, his pulse quicken in a way that makes him think he’s going to be sick, reminds him of the frantic scared energy he’d always felt under his skin when he was growing up, but which he’d gotten so used to living without since Terry died, since he moved away.  He stumbles out of Melly’s room and into the main space of their apartment, ready to fucking tear the place apart looking for her, already mentally picturing himself calling the cops, what he’d say to them if something had – if something had _happened_ to her, if he couldn’t find her. 

Luckily, he doesn’t have to worry for long.  As soon as he’s done suffering his mini heart-attack and skidded into the living room, he spots her.  She’s okay.

She’s more than okay, really.  She’s sat on the couch with Ian, her face pushed into his neck, her little hands clutching his t-shirt.  He can hear her small, quiet giggles, can see the way Ian’s hand is holding gently onto her back as he smiles at the cartoons they’re watching together on the TV.

Mickey wonders if he should feel jealous.  It seems that caring for Melly is coming a lot more naturally to Ian than it did to him.  And he’s only seen Melly look that attached to someone when she’s been with him; not even Mandy, who she adores, has been the recipient of that special kind of clinginess.  Mickey’s never had much that was just his, and Melly was that, for a while.  Now, she’s maybe just as fond of Ian and she is of him.

He wonders if he should feel jealous, but doesn’t.  What he feels is something like _happiness._ He’s not got much experience being happy, really, his shitty life has seen to that, even in times when things have been okay he’s never really been all that _happy,_ more like just managing to keep himself above the surface.  He thinks he could get used to the feeling.

“Hey,” says Ian, when he spots Mickey standing there, staring at them and probably looking like an idiot.  “She was up, I didn’t wanna wake you.”

“That’s cool,” says Mickey, because he can’t think of what else to say.

“We made coffee,” Ian says, nodding his head towards the kitchen, then turning his head back to Melly and adopting a slightly ridiculous high-pitched voice, “ _didn’t we?”_

He laughs, and she giggles along with him, and Mickey, feeling slightly dazed and warm to his stomach, goes to the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee.  He gets a bowl of cereal, while he’s there, and a not-too-bruised banana for Melly, and carries his hoard back to the couch, sits down next to Ian and Melly and turns his attention to the shitty cartoons they’re watching.  He sets his coffee and cereal down on the coffee table while he peels Melly’s banana.

When he’s done, Ian doesn’t even look over.  Just reaches, like he’s on autopilot, and breaks off a bit of the banana, hands it to Melly without taking his eyes off the TV.  She grabs it, starts eating happily.  Some of it gets smushed down Ian’s t-shirt, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit.

And Mickey is so, so not used to feeling this.  He wonders if this is how everybody else in the world feels, if he’s been missing out all this time.  He thinks that can’t be possible.  The world couldn’t be the way it is, if everybody felt like this all the time there wouldn’t be an ounce of anything bad left.

So he thinks that maybe he has something special, and that makes it all the better.

“Hey, man,” he says, when Melly’s cartoon ends and Ian’s eating the cereal like it was meant for him in the first place.  “You wanna, like, move in or some shit?”

Ian pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth.  Melly’s squirming in his arms, sends the milk sloshing all over his sweatpants, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Um,” he replies, and for half a second Mickey thinks he’s said something incredibly dumb, wants to scowl and take it back.  But then – “Yeah.  Sure.”

Mickey can’t stop himself from breaking out into a grin, doesn’t care how dumb it is.  After a moment, Ian grins back at him, even lets out this little fucking laugh like he can’t believe his life, and Mickey doesn’t bother to stop himself from thinking it’s cute.

He leans over the top of Melly to kiss Ian, long and deep, putting everything he has into that fucking kiss.

Melly smushes the rest of her banana onto his chest, but he doesn't mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. so. it's over??? i've been writing this fic since february and it's kind of seemed like my whole world so this is really, so so strange to me. i hope you guys have enjoyed the ride as much as i have! i have some short sequels planned to this, mostly oneshots, so while i'm not totally done with this 'verse, this fic is definitely the main body of it. if there are any missing moments you'd like to see in a oneshot, hit me up with prompts!
> 
> also i just wanna shout out southern-winterking and magneticdice, my two main angels who did a lot of cheerleading and beta reading and word warring and just general encouraging about this fic, it totally wouldn't have gotten done without them <3
> 
> you can find me on tumblr as [mickeymilk](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)


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